


The Witches' Library

by jones2000



Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), The Mummy Series, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)
Genre: ...because that's what The Mummy does, After Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Alludes to The Mummy 2017, Because of Reasons, Gen, Jonathan needs his own story, playing fast and loose with history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-03-02 12:59:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 43,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18811378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jones2000/pseuds/jones2000
Summary: He would like to state emphatically for the record that none of this was his fault, thank you very much. It was all entirely coincidental. He should know by now that these things have a tendency to snowball. Or, Jonathan doesn't need the O'Connells to find trouble.





	1. Chapter 1

He would like to state emphatically for the record that none of this was his fault, thank you very much.

And that was the line he was going to be resolutely sticking to if Evelyn ever found out.

Swarthy-skinned men, women draped in seeming yards of brightly-patterned tablecloths, and grubby barefoot children stopped in their tracks to stare at the foreign man as he strode past, like they had never seen someone quite like him before.

Jonathan Carnahan supposed in hindsight that he did make quite a sight, shirttails hanging out and laden down with bags like a camel, legs flashing back and forth so fast that he was practically jogging down the main street of Lima. Being coated head to toe in ash with four bloody stinging fingernail scratches across his cheek probably didn't help to dispel the stares. Blimey, he probably looked like he'd done the contessa for her jewels and then gone and blown up Jeeves and the mansion for good measure.

Hell, the two grand burning a hole in his hip pocket was more than enough to raise some seriously awkward questions if and when the local constabulary were alerted to his person and decided it was their civic duty to stop him for a little chat, the man too eccentric for even their streets. And, well, right now Jonathan was entirely too knackered to think of any sort of passable lie, and the truth wasn't likely to fly anytime soon.

Yes, he technically may have been trespassing at the time, but it really was only to ease his own poor burdened mind that everything was well. Only to be confronted the next moment by a middle-aged wide-eyed archaeologist in an expensive suit caked with mud and something that smelled suspiciously like urine, looking at Jonathan like he was an angel sent from heaven and the next moment the flustered Mr Uhle, (discoverer of the chinchorro mummies and media darling,) was pushing money into his hands in exchange for taking care of a little problem of a resurrected Peruvian priestess.

The points of the thing started to get a little hazy after that as the whole situation quickly degenerated into dodging masked cultists, a wild scramble for an enchanted sacrificial blade, and explosions.

Oh, so many explosions.

Jonathan was fully intending to give the funny little man his money back, he really was, but in the bluster and chaos of getting the stubborn old broad back into her coffin to just rest in bloody peace already, the bloody bobbies had decided it was a good time to turn up and Jonathan suddenly remembered a pressing appointment elsewhere and a rather expensive steamer ticket in his hotel room. He was all but running to the pier when Jonathan remembered that he just ripped off the Americas' greatest archaeologist of the moment.

…and that was the only part of the tale that his sister would remotely believe.

Win some, lose some.

Yes, he was on time! Finally something was bloody going his way!

Ticket and passport between his teeth, Jonathan dropped his suitcases on the dock, finally taking a moment to breathe, his back as kinked as an old wire. While the cuts on his face were shallow, they stung like nobody's business, and Jonathan couldn't exactly miss the parents shepherding their children away from the crazy man. See, Arabella, Tommy, that's what a serial killer looks like.

If he had any self-respect left, he'd be offended.

But back to the issue at hand-

Mummies. Always bloody mummies.

He watched the steamer's disembarking passengers with an increasing agitation, bobbing up on tiptoe to see above the crowd, the unfounded anxiety that had seized him telling him that if he remained in South America for too much longer, something disastrous was bound to occur. Twas the way his luck ran.

He stared at the ship, willing the staff to just hurry the hell up already.

He had to be the only chap in the civilised world in a hurry to get to _Australia._ While the native laddies down there seemed disproportionately fond of their curses, and his few run-ins with the Aussies in Palestine way back when hadn't exactly endeared the country to him, Jonathan had weighed up the odds and decided he could put up with spontaneously sprouting warts and being gnawed on by the occasional crocodile if there were no

Bloody

Mummies.

Now get a hold of yourself, you great lummox! Surely nothing earth-shattering could possibly happen in the next half hour!

"Doctor Carnahan?"

Balls.

He really needed to learn to stop tempting fate.

* * *

 

Jonathan felt himself involuntarily stiffening, as traditionally a stranger's utterance of his name was followed by a good right hook by an offended lady's brother, or on a few memorable occasions, the offended lady herself. But, he reflected wryly, it had been absolute ages since he'd shimmied down a lady's drainpipe in his underpants when the lady's husband came home early. He hadn't been in real proper trouble, the kind without undead fiends, for years. His young self would be truly appalled.

Bugger, he was coming to the realisation that sometime while he wasn't looking, he had become an adult.

"Doctor Jonathan Carnahan?"

Yes, that was him.

Wait, that _was_ him.

Jonathan had a strange feeling of precognition right then telling him that he really should just walk away and get on the blasted ship, that it could only end in tears. Carefully taking the passport from his mouth, he slowly turned to look over his shoulder.

There was a woman standing tall behind him in a smart tweed suit and vest, with a creamy Nordic complexion and a cool air about her. Her flaxen-coloured hair was wound up into a bun and held in place by a pencil, that offhand little detail adding a human touch to her otherwise businesslike visage. She was looking at him with a boldly expectant expression, like she knew exactly who Jonathan was and was getting impatient waiting for him to acknowledge her in return like any other human.

"Doctor Carnahan?" Her voice was accented, Europe somewhere, and Jonathan knew it but he couldn't place it, in one of those little things that tripped up your mind and made you wild with the niggling thought that wouldn't let you rest until you solved it.

"Yes?" It came out more like a question and in a rather squeaky voice, like the time Jonathan was five and Mother had asked him if their massive dog Bounder had really eaten the last of the chocolate biscuits. He cleared his throat and tried again, wishing he had been gifted with the deep, bowel-shaking gravitas in his voice that so many of his peers had developed as they went through puberty. But no matter how he tried, Jonathan still sounded like he was fourteen years old and excited about his first boy-girl dance. "Yes, I'm Doctor Carnahan."

There was an element of wonder behind his words as soon as he said them. Yes, Jonathan tended to forget that he really was Doctor Carnahan, or at least that was what the bit of paper from Oxford that was locked up in an old steamer trunk somewhere said.

She thrust out her hand, seemingly unperturbed by him covered in filth, and as he shook Jonathan took note that her fingernails were chipped and hand rough and calloused. Ah, not some secretary then, unless the tea run had become exponentially more dangerous during the time Jonathan had been in Asia.

"Doctor Sarsgard Magnusson, University of Oslo, Department of Archaeology and Antiquities. Pleased to meet you."

Uh-oh.

The next words were out before he could stop them.

"I didn't do it."

"Pardon?" Her nose crinkled in a bemused way, a foreigner trying to figure out whether it was her understanding of the language causing the translation problem, or if he had just said something stupid.

"Sorry, instinct." He gave a nervous laugh and ran an ashy hand back through his dirty hair. Damn it all, he could still taste the priestess. She was under his fingernails and down his pants, for Christ's sake. "I guess I'm a bit tense. Yes, very tense."

"Holiday not going the way you expected it to?"

Pfft.

"Not… exactly."

Or it went _exactly_ as expected, when one looked at the wide and varied history of O'Connell-Carnahan holidays. Guns encouraged. Must bring own ammunition. Jonathan wondered why he even thought it might go any other way.

If Magnusson wondered why Jonathan's first reflex on being confronted by a stranger was to deny all knowledge of a theoretical situation, she was much too classy a dame to ask why. Instead he got the impression that she'd probably sneak around to find out why later. She gave a not my business smile and dropped his hand, effectively dropping the subject. God, Jonathan loved the Not My Business smile. Evy needed to use the Not My Business smile more often. She'd have a much easier time of it and Jonathan's consciousness would be in the clear.

Magnusson's clear and steady gaze didn't waver.

"Let's dispense with the pleasantries, yes?"

Jonathan's brow furrowed. "Let's. Please." He slowly straightened, making what he believed was a valiant effort to gather himself and look somewhat professional in the process. Why, it had been over a good thirty years since he had been taken seriously on the very fringes of academic circles, and a good portion of that was reflected glory from Father, and later, his sister. The situation seemed somewhat odd, to say the least. "While I'm quite partial to getting accosted by attractive blondes in unusual places and will fully encourage it to continue into the future, I kind of have to wonder whether you've got the right bloke, so to say."

The woman's expression turned vaguely amused. "Doctor Jonathan Edwin Carnahan, son of Egyptologist Howard Carnahan, brother of Doctor Evelyn O'Connell, with whom you rediscovered the lost city of Hamunaptra, nightclub tycoon and graduate of Eton and Oxford University. That is you?"

Okay, maybe she had the right bloke.

"And perhaps half a dozen other places in between. I'll have you know that I've been kicked out of the finest educational institutions all across Europe." It was a matter of pride and a badge of honour throughout his life, leaving Evy endlessly exasperated with him. Of course, when he started Imhoteps and started raking it in, all the schools he was booted from claimed him as alumni and wanted money. "Nightclub tycoon. I like that. I might keep it."

An eyebrow tilted. "While I am as interested as the next man in your lack of love for structured academia-" –her accent increased with her sarcasm – "-we're getting off tangent."

"A tangent? We were on a tangent?" Jonathan asked. He eased a finger between his neck and shirt collar, still impossibly starched and stiff after everything, a good British collar. No wonder the English were so irritable all the time, with what constituted high fashion. He loosened his tie, needing something to do with his hands. Maybe that was why he had always been an insatiable pickpocket – busy hands.

At least that was the explanation he was going with.

He could hear Evy laughing now as the woman gave him a look like she was wondering whether he was completely scatterbrained.

Jonathan glanced down at his watch, and his eyes widened. "Listen, Doc, it's been a pleasure, but I really need to get going." He waved his ticket and passport. "Things to do. People to see."

And not just because he was eager to end this uncomfortably odd situation.

"Are you sure you can't spare a moment for a drink? On me."

For a moment Jonathan wavered. A younger, good-looking blonde offering to buy him a drink? He'd thought those days were long gone for him. "As much as I wish I could. Maybe I'll drop you a line at Oslo?"

The other eyebrow joined her first at the top of her forehead. He could just imagine Jonathan-at-eighteen railing at him in disgust.

"Well, I never thought I'd live to see the day. Jonny Carnahan knocking back a drink invitation with a beautiful woman. The End is nigh."

An older man of perhaps Jonathan's vintage joined them on the dock, squeezing Magnusson's shoulder familiarly as he went past, and Jonathan was amused by the flash of _what_ _the hell?_ that had appeared on her face before she schooled her expression into neutrality. He turned his attention back to the man that had barged his way into a perfectly civil conversation.

He was a reasonably pleasant-looking fellow, with wide-spaced green eyes, a jolly smile, and fashionable wavy blonde hair that a lady would kill for, which was unfairly (in Jonathan's opinion) not even slightly sprinkled with grey. Standing next to Jonathan with his torn trousers and smeared with ash, the chap looked like nobility next to a chimney sweep. Jonathan half expected the bloke to toss him a couple of bob to shine his shoes.

After a long moment of studying Jonathan's expression, the man's face broke out into a jovial grin, a lock of golden hair falling rakishly into his eye like some fop out of the bodice-rippers that Evelyn wrote.

"What ho, he doesn't recognise me. That's a healthy kick to the self-esteem; especially after all I did for you in Kandahar."

Jonathan gaped at him. Was the old fellow running a long con or what? The only other person in Kandahar was-

Oh.

He drew himself up.

"Was that before or after you threw me out of the window, Percy?"

The man swished a hand like he was swatting away a bug. "Ah, stop bellyaching, Carnahan. There was an awning under you, after all."

"A sheet of canvas that had stood in the elements for about the last two hundred years!"

The bloke gave that too good-looking to be entirely human smile that always gave Jonathan a barely-controllable urge to kick his perfect white teeth in while all the lasses in a mile radius were busy throwing their garters at him.

"No hard feelings, eh, old chap? It was all a long time ago now, after all."

Jonathan pasted on his stock-in-trade insincere smile.

He had been in competition with Percival Eugene Forsyth-Golding III almost his whole life. Mother called it a friendly rivalry, but the truth was that even during their parent-mandated play dates to introduce their beloved firstborn spawn to others of their social station, each of them had been secretly plotting to somehow do in the other without getting caught, all the while exuding perfect affability and camaraderie to the outside.

Ah, the games that all highborn youth played.

Wankers.

"How are you, Perce?"

Golding looked him up and down, lips twitching in amusement.

"I'd reckon a fair sight better than you right now, old son. Have you been cleaning the attic with a bellows?"

Arrogant little twat. While normally Jonathan would have thrown himself into the game wholeheartedly, being his witty and charming best, right now he was impatient and tired and dirty and sore and just wanted to curl up in a corner somewhere with a big bottle of Scotch. Behind them, Magnusson's lips had thinned, definitely not appreciating Golding bombing into her conversation, but Percy either ignored or didn't care about her looking at him daggers.

He flung an arm around Jonathan's neck and dragging him close, like they were co-conspirators on some grand adventure. The alarm bells ringing in Jonathan's head kicked it up a notch. Percy gave his greasy, snake-oil seller's smile, and Jonathan braced himself for the hard word.

"Thing is, old chum, I've got a proposition for you."

Jonathan thought of all the times he had said the _very same thing_ , and his teeth itched.

"All my money is tied up in properties."

The man grinned.

"Ah, Jonny, what must you think of me!"

Oh, so many things.

At that Doctor Magnusson cleared her throat pointedly, reminding them that yes, she was still there too. Percy whirled around, dragging Jonathan with him. "Of course, you've met Sigrun already, she's efficient like that."

He shot her a big conciliatory beam. She shot him a look that Jonathan fancied said _piss off and die in a hole._

"Sig, Jonathan and I knew each other all our lives!"

"Rather to my detriment, old boy." Jonathan carefully disentangled himself from the entirely-too-affable bloke, smoothing his waistcoat. A moment later he remembered the ruined state of his clothes and how ridiculous it must have seemed, and winced.

Percy didn't seem to mind, if his ego allowed him to notice anything beyond his nose in the first place.

He looked between Doctor Magnusson and Percy. "Ah, so you two-?"

"Don't be absurd." Magnusson said swiftly, with the slightest roll of her eyes. Jonathan recognised that look. It was the same look Evy used to get when he suggested fixing her up on a date with one of his mates, one that clearly said you really think I can't do any better than that? "We are… how you say, colleagues. Work colleagues."

Golding gave a little wince at her abruptness. "No need to be so sharp." He sounded wounded, but by her flat expression, Sigrun Magnusson wasn't buying any of it, boosting her profile immeasurably in Jonathan's humble opinion, since it was a rare woman who wasn't spellbound by his good looks and easy charm. It also made him a little nervous; Magnusson wasn't a sucker. He'd have to work on his material.

"Not that I don't appreciate the domestics, but I really do have plans that I'd be rather dismayed to postpone-" Jonathan waved his steamer ticket.

"Pfft." Percy gave a dismissive gesture, like he was waving away a bad smell. "Who in their right mind wants to go to Australia anyway? Full of savages and murderers, not to mention all the aborigines, eh! Come and have a drink with us, let me outline my business plan."

Jonathan tried to resist getting sucked into this man's vortex of evil, he really did. There were problems when Jonathan Carnahan refused to do business with you because he thought you were just a touch shady. Percy had inherited his father's title in the House of Lords, and although Jonathan couldn't prove anything, he was fairly sure he had embezzled public money to support his lavish lifestyle.

Jonathan suspected that one of the reasons Percy irritated him so much was because the man was exactly what he'd have been without Evy to provide him with at least _some_ moral compass.

"I'll have you know that this ticket was rather expensive and I-"

"I'll pay you."

"Forget it, old boy, I can't be bought. I have the steely resolve of a Benedictine monk."

Percy just smirked and Jonathan hated their shared youth.

Finally he caved.

"How much money are we talking about here?"

Percy gave a toothy grin, knowing full-well that he had hit on Jonathan's Achilles' heel. It wasn't like Jonathan just had to be ridiculously rich, he'd just always wanted enough to be able to sleep in the sun all day with an endless supply of booze and those two outcomes always seemed to intersect.

He slung his arm back over Jonathan's shoulders. "Let me buy you a drink, partner."

_Well, poo._

"I think that's the worst name anyone's ever called me."

Percy laughed.

The road to hell was paved with blondes and dollar bills.


	2. Chapter 2

The pub Percy dragged them to was one of those horrid affairs that was supposed to be filled with native ambiance and culture but was really chockers with what whites thought of as 'foreign'; tacky reproductions of masks and artefacts, brightly-patterned threadbare rugs thrown over every surface, and servers with loud, fake 'ethnic' accents, like there was an epidemic of brown people eschewing formal education. To cater to their American neighbours, a cowboy hat was perched jauntily on a shrunken head, and a group of Irishmen were singing bawdy songs in the corner like they were so drunk that they'd entirely forgotten they were in Lima, Peru instead of Lima B&B, Dublin.

Bah. Give Jonathan a good, old-fashioned casbah in the middle of Egypt's old quarter any day. Good lord, he abhorred places like this.

There was a vase sitting in the centre of the table that Golding had led them to, and while Percy was off fetching them drinks, Jonathan pulled out the lone wilting daisy. Dipping his fingers into the greening water, he splashed it on his cheeks and vigorously scrubbed his face with his tie. Poor thing. Used to be a fine expensive emerald green silk affair, now it looked like a grotty old hanky that had been balled up and forgotten at the bottom of someone's pocket. Ah well, he'd give it a proper burial later.

He lowered his hands to catch Doctor Magnusson looking at him, and unlike other society ladies who would turn away and pretend they were looking at something really important if they were caught staring at a gentleman, her clear eyes met his unabashedly.

Jonathan stuffed his balled-up tie in his trouser pocket. He was shedding dust like a moth. When he was young, it used to annoy him, being filthy. After the trenches and Hamunaptra, he'd found he wasn't so picky as long as he still had his limbs mostly intact. "Help you with something there?"

"Not at all. Just observing the scenery." Smooth as ever, a proud peacock of a woman. "By the way, you missed a spot." She touched her own cheek, smiling innocently, and Jonathan felt his lips quirk into an answering wry grin.

_Oh, ha._

"So, dear Doctor Magnusson." He lent back in his chair, and his eyebrows rose as he looked her over. Up close, she was perhaps more of a, say, _handsome_ woman than conventionally beautiful, with a strong jaw and a smattering of fine lines and freckles. After a moment he realised that she was studying him back with the same intensity and supposed she wasn't _quite_ as taken with him. "What's your story?"

"Pardon?"

"Well, forgive my curiosity, I'm a bit of a Nosy Nellie and all," he folded his arms. "But I've known Percy for a long time now, and it's just that you seem entirely more competent than his usual standard of flunky."

Her brow furrowed. "I am not sure whether I should thank you or throw my water in your face."

"I get that more often than you know." Jonathan said. "So, he offered you money?"

"You make it sound so _cheap,_ Doctor Carnahan." She said. "I am an archaeologist attached to the University of Oslo, Dr Carnahan, nothing untoward, I assure you. My department has attached me to Mr Golding for the duration of the project."

Ah, now that was sounding interesting. As much as the logical part of Jonathan heard the word _archaeologist_ and wanted to leg it out of there as fast as he could, the blasted Carnahan curiosity that he thought he had deadened through years of whisky and excess reared its ugly head. If it had been Evy, she would have been water boarding the woman for more information by now.

His eyes narrowed.

"The project?"

And of course that was when Golding reappeared with their drinks, and Jonathan found himself looking into a massive stein filled with a dark brew topped with a frothy head. His nose wrinkled. "Beer? Really? Are we fifteen years old again and sneaking a brew into the dorms for the lads?"

"Stop whining, you lush, it has alcohol in it." He pushed the glass toward him and took a pull on his own. "You know, I was starting to think that the only way I'd hook you in again was at my funeral. And that'd only be to see if I was really dead."

Jonathan arched an eyebrow. "Well, we can live in hope." He looked dubiously down into his beer stein.

"Are you going to tell me about why you tracked me down?"

"Mate, just… take a drink already, yeah?"

Jonathan took a reluctant sip and had to admit that it wasn't a bad drop, for one probably brewed out the back in the barman's mother's bathtub.

"This project whosmibob must be just something if you're trying to get me drunk first."

"There's not enough alcohol in the Orient to get _you_ drunk, Carnahan."

"Good lord, Golding, will you just get a wriggle on?"

"You're getting testy in your old age." Percy flashed another knicker-dropping grin before setting down to business. "Down to brass tacks, good fellow. Now, as much as I am loathe to puncture your ego-"

"Oh, I am _sure_ you are. Positively distraught, I see."

"-I did not intentionally seek you out. Sigrun and I and the team just _happened_ to be in the area-"

"-because everyone must do a nice bracing walk through the jungle marshland of South America at least once. There's nothing that makes one feel more alive than feeling the wind through your hair whilst outfoxing head-hunters and Columbian drug runners."

"-brought in as consultants on a few choice digs in the area, and when I saw you were in the area, well, I just thought, who better?"

 _I bet._ "Who better for what? Who would bring _you_ in as a consultant on anything?"

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that second part." Percy grinned again, but there was a darker glimmer somewhere behind it. "As for _who_ , Monuments, Fine Arts, & Artefacts, chap."

"MFAA? _You_ were one of the Monuments Men?" Jonathan asked doubtfully.

"Still _am_ , old mate."

Jonathan mightn't have had his finger on the pulse of advancements in archaeology, but he liked to think he still knew what's what. "Didn't the bloody Yanks' and their State Department take control of the whole racket in '46?"

" _Racket_?" The man looked insulted at that.

"Yes, racket. Playing that your life is one big boy's-own adventure book with the least possible expended effort while people are dying in the real world. Rather like having Daddy get you a medical exemption when the first round all kicked off in 1914, eh, old chap?" Jonathan kept his voice light, trying not fall into the well of resentment and bitterness that the words invoked. Like so many of the chaps that had come back, Jonathan tried not to live in his memory, as he found he had so few moments he would rather like to relive again in the first place.

Two world wars would do that to a man.

That seemed to break the other man of his happily smiley gentile demeanour somewhat, and Percy just stared at him. "Perhaps this was a mistake."

Jonathan's eyebrows rose, preparing to leave the table. "Perhaps."

That was when Magnusson put down her glass with a click. "Then it is fortunate that you are not in charge of the project, is it not, Mr Golding?"

Percy opened and closed his mouth ineffectually for a few furious moments, and Jonathan looked at the woman with a new curiosity. " _You're_ in charge of the project?"

"Please, don't sound so shocked, Dr Carnahan." She said. "After the last war, the possibility to put us back in our box was long gone, as much as they wanted to."

Jonathan frowned. "Scholars?"

She snorted. _"Men."_

Ah.

"Well, let it be known that I have absolutely no problem with women in positions of power, and that's not just because my sister might actually kill me if I said anything else." Jonathan said, not sure whether he was saying the right thing or just digging a deeper hole. "Knew some absolute crackers at Bletchley in the day. More ladies in positions of authority. Women on top, I say."

She looked at him over steepled fingers, and Jonathan felt himself colour, realising too late what he'd just said.

"Percy, dear, would you fetch me a white wine?" Magnusson asked lightly.

Percy looked at her half-finished glass of water. "But you already-"

Magnusson raised her eyebrows and gave the man a look that rivalled Evy's prickly best, and Percy rose from the table with a disgruntled look. She may have well just actually told the man to go away.

Jonathan watched him go, with a confused frown crinkling his brow. He slowly turned back to Magnusson, who was still watching him. Jonathan suddenly felt unusually self-conscious, hyper aware of being covered in filth and blood, and every strand of grey in his dark hair. He had the feeling that she was looking for something, and the idea wasn't reassuring in the slightest. He wasn't exactly what you'd call reliable or, well, _stable_ in his chosen career path.

He watched her back with the same scrutiny, and his brows rose. "Excuse my language, but you seem to be a smart girl, so what in the world are you doing with _that_ wanker there?"

Magnusson gave a little shrug, a little twist to her lips. "We all do things we would rather not to secure funding."

Jonathan winced, thinking back to the things he had done as an eager young student, or an eager _enough_ young student, in the name of sucking up to the moneyed landed gentry.

"Lady Golding is a major benefactor of the expedition." Magnusson said. "And part of the agreement was that her son would be assisting to protect her investment."

"Ah." Jonathan wasn't sure whether he should be sorry or not that dear old Perce was close to half a century old and his mother was _still_ arranging play dates for him. The tough old bird probably wanted him out of her house, with her fingers crossed that he'd conveniently die on the expedition.

"Percy saw you talking with Mr Uhle and brought it to my attention that you might be an asset as a consultant with your documented prior experience."

Uh-huh. That didn't sound ominous _at_ _all_.

"A consultant? I've been in the nightclub business for over ten years, I'm probably a _bit_ out of date in the archaeological sciences. If you want a consultant you'd be better off with that American fellow, that Dr Jones bloke that everybody raves about." His mouth quirked in a grin. "Too expensive for Lady Golding's taste or something?"

"I and the university and other stakeholders would like to keep American involvement to a minimum." He got that. Boy, did he get _that._ "While the original endeavours of the Monuments Men were honourable enough, the truth is that the Allies were responsible for as much of the looting in the War as the Axis." Jonathan could visualise museums all over the States filled with artefacts that had been looted during the Holocaust, and being intimately acquainted with museums and their practises, the original owners wouldn't likely see their possessions ever again. "And I _don't_ need the State Department interfering with my expedition."

Jonathan settled back in his seat, arms crossed. "So you're looking for something." _Spiffing deduction skills, old chap. You ought to be a detective._ "You're looking for something that you don't want the Americans to get their mitts on." The possibilities were endless. The Fountain of Eternal Youth, the Spear of Destiny, the Holy Grail. Take your pick. And then he started to narrow down the parameters slightly. "Something that was lost during the war."

She took a sip of her water. "Very good reasoning."

"You dropped enough hints to spell it out, madam." He gave a wry grin. "I can even count up to ten without using my fingers, too."

Oh, good. A smirk. She was at least partially human, then. Jonathan looked up to see that Percy was still standing at the bar, vainly trying to get the attention of the barman, who was busy serving a group of pretty young giggling girls. Once upon a time, Jonathan would have been over there like a shot, but now all he could think of was how he'd most likely put his back out and have to have the gal call him a taxi.

"I'm still missing the _point_ here, ma'am. Why am I here?"

Magnusson's tented fingers folded together; her hands folded together the tabletop.

"The Occult Reich."

"No." Jonathan's face grew hard.

"During the course of the war, Heinrich Himmler formed the _H-Sonderkommando_ , a wing specifically formed to scour the world looking for artefacts and documents of occult power." Her steely eyes never wavered from his face as she ploughed on. "By the end of the war, a library of some many thousands of manuscripts had been seized, including objects of power from my own home, which the National Socialist Workers Party considered the Aryan ideal, to our detriment." For a moment her expression clouded, and Jonathan felt a pang of sympathy before he hardened his heart against the sentiment.

"Nope. Not interested, sorry."

"Surviving journals from Hitler's archaeologists hold hint to the locations, but as of yet I have been unable to pinpoint an exact site. As an archaeologist, finding the library would be a boon to my career, but I, _we_ , also would be returning to the world thousands of books of ancient knowledge that would have been otherwise lost for all time."

"By returning books on witchcraft?" Jonathan had entirely too much experience in his life with sorcery, and was more than happy to leave a library of spell books where they were. "Old Adolf Hitler was a psychopathic crackpot that was sour that they lost the Great War and decided to punish his home and the rest of the world because of it, nothing else. If Himmler believed sorcery and witches would give him an edge, it was only because he didn't believe that the Nazis could win without outside intervention."

Magnusson pressed her hands flat against the surface of the table. "Any sufficiently advanced civilisation is indistinguishable from magic."

"I think I was there when young Arthur Clarke said that. He always got philosophical whenever he had a few too many, the little bastard." Jonathan's eyes narrowed. "You think these books contain evidence of advanced dead civilisations?"

Evy would be champing at the bit.

"I don't know." She said. "I won't know until I hold the books in my hands."

"And you're willing to risk your life across the previously Nazi-held territories to follow the paper trails of monsters to some fabled treasure that may have been destroyed at the end of the war?"

"When you put it like that you make it sound foolish." Her lips quirked into a quick grin before fading away. "The War is not over, Doctor Carnahan, no matter what our kings and politicians say. There are many of the Fascists that have escaped justice, fading into the ether, and then of course there are the ones that America stole to fashion their Manhattan Project."

Jonathan had a glimmering right then of why Magnusson was so adamant that the Yanks stayed out of it. If anyone was going to be tainted by pro-Fascist sentiment, it was going to be the American government.

"We do not know how many by even now may be on the trail."

Great. Fascists with magic. Bloody fantastic.

"You don't even know whether this library has already been found or not." He pointed out. "And I'm still not seeing exactly how I fit into your scheme."

Sigrun Magnusson met his gaze squarely. "I have been reliably informed that you are somewhat of a, what is the word, _grave robber_."

He couldn't help but feel insulted. For years his parents had impressed upon him the importance of leaving a dig in the same manner as you found it, treating the artefacts and the people with respect and understanding, and he'd liked to think that he didn't just wantonly destroy artefacts or sites of historical importance all willy-nilly. _Just Hamunaptra, and Ahm Shere, and the terracotta army in China…_

Anyway.

Jonathan pressed his lips together in a hard line. "An archaeologist, an Egyptologist, even a treasure hunter at the worst, but I hardly believe I qualify for _that_ designation."

The woman gave a dismissive wave. "It is the same."

"It really isn't."

"We shall have to agree to disagree, my friend." She said. "At any rate, I have been reliably informed that you have rather a, nose for treasure, if you will."

"I thought you were looking for a library." And then the words registered. "A nose for treasure?" Jonathan smiled at the uniquely English turn of phrase. "Dear girl, I don't know where you are from, but to me, the definition of treasure is somewhat more than a few dozen crates full of dusty tomes."

Magnusson tapped her fingertips on the tabletop, a mysterious little smirk on her face that Jonathan wasn't sure he liked. After a moment he realised why; it was the exact same smile he himself used when he knew without question that he had hit on something so grand he could more or less name his own price.

"Perhaps not. But, say, does a treasure train filled with gold, what do you English say, fit the bill?"

"Treasure train?"

The doctor made a noise of assent. "I believe that was how the Witches' Library was smuggled out while the Russians marched on Berlin."

"That's-" Jonathan started. "Got to be the daftest plan I've ever heard."

"Is it?" She countered. "If boarded by Allied or Russian forces, would they be more interested in gold bullion or mouldering old manuscripts?"

His eyes narrowed.

"Exactly how much gold bullion are we talking about here?"

* * *

Jonathan really didn't know exactly how desperately exhausted he was until he nodded off in the tub and almost drowned himself.

Coughing and spluttering, he broke the surface of the tepid water that was now a sludgy grey. Grimacing, he drained the tub and rolled into a Ritz-issued fluffy bathrobe. It sure beat the hell out of some of the dives he had stayed in when he had been on dig teams as a young man. Sometimes you counted yourself bloody lucky when you had a roof that didn't leak, and if you actually got a mattress instead of a patch of floor with a rat for a pillow.

Jonathan sat on the bed, fluffy robe wrapped tightly around him, before reaching for the telephone. After a stupidly long time and a detour to an operator that sounded like she smoked a box of cigarettes a day at the least, finally a phone started ringing somewhere across the Atlantic. Waiting, Jonathan reclined back on the bed, telephone in his lap and playing with the cord like he was some kind of socialite looking for a date to the debutante ball.

Finally the call connected.

_"_ _O'Connell residence."_

The steel-faced old manservant's voice was as cold and insipid as a Welsh tart. Jonathan suddenly felt a pang of loss for the old greeting of _Carnahan residence_ , even though he'd signed his share of the family estate over to his sister decades ago.

"Ah, Mr Cannon, absolutely cracking to hear your voice again, old boy." What could he say, there was something he enjoyed immensely in riling people up, especially the people he was painfully aware disapproved of him in the first place. "Say, is the old lady of the house in? I'd rather like to have a word with the old dear, if that's not too much trouble."

Jonathan could practically feel the disapproval and disdain sizzling down the telephone line, Mr Cannon immediately realising exactly who was on the other end of the line.

_"_ _One moment."_

There was a clunk as he put the phone receiver down without even the slightest attempt to be careful. _"Who is it, George?"_ Jonathan could hear his sister ask. She sounded winded, and he fondly remembered the silly game they'd played as children to see whether they could race to the telephone first before the help picked it up. It wouldn't surprise him at all if Evy had just instinctively dashed down the stairs to try and reach the infernal device first.

_"_ _Your brother, madam."_

There was so much Jonathan could infer just from those three words alone. He tapped his fingers atop his thigh, well aware that his baby sister was fighting dual urges, one to tell him to bugger off back to the Orient and leave her be, and the other to interrogate him mercilessly on whatever madcap adventure he was on at this moment and to beg him to take her with him next time. Like their mother, Evy was a woman of extremes.

 _"_ _Either that was the fastest ship to ever sail the high seas, or you've changed your mind."_ Evy said tartly. All of a sudden, her mirth turned into worry. _"You're not coming_ back _, are you?"_

"But I already booked the liner."

Jonathan could _hear_ his sister's horror over the phone line, and his delighted laugh sounded more like a cackle.

"Rest easy, old mum. I think we have discovered over the years that dual cohabitation is not our forte."

 _"_ _I'm not wiring you any money."_ Evy said suspiciously.

"Dear sister, is _that_ what we have been reduced to?"

_"_ _Bugger off, you twat."_

Jonathan grinned, and then his smirk faded. Evy might have technically been a stay-at-home author after her hijinks during the last war, but he was well aware that she was more switched on than he would ever be.

"Say, have you heard of a Doctor Sigrun Sarsgard Magnusson, perchance?"

 _"_ _The Norwegian archaeologist?"_ He fancied he could hear his sister's mind ticking over. _"She lectures all over the world, and was the lead archaeologist excavating the Viking ruins that were found in Malta."_

"I remember."

No, he didn't.

_"_ _You aren't going to fleece her, are you?"_

"Why Evy, what you must think of me!"

_"_ _Let me count the ways."_

"No, she… I have been approached to be a consultant on her current project."

There was an ear-splitting crash, and Jonathan winced, hoping whatever it was hadn't been expensive. _"What project?"_ She demanded. He briefly thought about telling her about Nazi gold, and then dismissed it.

"Something about lost manuscripts of a national significance, I don't know."

If there was any lingering doubts on his part about Magnusson's credentials, Evy's answer wiped them away.

 _"_ _And she asked_ you _?"_

"I'm just going to pretend that your attitude is due to rampant envy because you're ecstatic about my devilish run of good luck."

 _"_ _Oh, of course, Jonathan. It's just-"_ He could picture her, strangling the telephone receiver, trying to look pleased while fuming on the inside. _"It's_ you _."_

"You aren't exactly on the cusp of scientific innovation anymore either, Evy."

 _"_ _You owned a_ nightclub _."_ His sister shot back, with entirely too much vehemence, in Jonathan's humble opinion.

"I had a sideline in antiques." He said defensively.

_"_ _You had a sideline in kitschy knockoffs you sold to the gullible, all the while talking about such a bargain they were getting and the time you killed a mummy."_

As he gazed around the room, Jonathan's eyes alighted on the harmless-looking box on the writing desk, the innocuous little puzzle box that had arguably started the whole bloody thing. He really _had_ considered chucking it in the sinkhole after Hamunaptra, or giving it to Ardeth, but for some reason, he… didn't. Holding onto it like it was some kind of lucky charm and he was a miserable old miser with his last penny. It was probably tempting fate, but then, that was his whole modus operandi.

"To be fair, I _did_ kill a mummy." He thought of Anck-Su-Namun and the priests. "Quite a few, actually. Just apparently not the one that _mattered_." Jonathan said pointedly.

Evy sighed in a burst of static. _"Just tell me that this isn't a con."_

"If it's a con, I'm not running it." He said dryly.

The silence on the line told Jonathan that his sister was turning his last words over in his head. _"Do you think there's something else going on?"_ Her voice had turned deadly serious, bowing to Jonathan's superior knowledge when it came to spotting a fraud.

"Dear sister, as you so eloquently put it, why would they ask _me_ , a bumbling incompetent, when there's _you_."

 _"_ _I did not say that."_ Evy said crossly. Jonathan noted that she didn't exactly deny it. _"Where are you headed?"_

Her voice was so innocent, bless her, that Jonathan almost told her before he snapped back to himself. "I'm not going to tell you."

_"_ _What? Why?"_

"Because I know you, and I know that as soon as you have a spare moment you'll be popping down for a looksee. So you and Rick and maybe little Alex can just pop by, come haring in and turn the entire thing into a gunfight against the undead? Face it, Evy, I think it's better that there's an ocean between us."

 _"_ _Don't be foolish, Jonathan. Alex is in Syria."_ Evy said, a distracted air to her words as though she was already calculating how fast she could get Rick packed up and get to the nearest airport.

"Uh-uh, no. I think we have proven that family togetherness with _this_ particular family is best avoided."

_"_ _Please, Jonathan, don't be dramatic."_

"Dramatic? Last year Rick _died_. Rick died and _you_ died and I refuse to have any more on my conscience."

There was a momentary pause as both siblings refused to let themselves succumb to sentimentality.

"Though," Jonathan added. "Statistically speaking, I am long overdue for an aggressive drubbing."

 _"_ _That's not funny."_ Normally Evy would have hit back that he'd been overdue for a drubbing since the moment he was born, but not today, for some reason. Thankfully it was that American scoundrel that broke the tension.

 _"_ _Your brother has_ never _been funny."_ O'Connell called out in the background.

There was a chuckle from either end of the globe.

"So I reiterate, you're not invited." Jonathan said. "And Magnusson is a real archaeologist."

 _"_ _And respectable, too."_ Evy said.

"Are you insinuating that I'll taint her by association?"

_"_ _Don't be daft. So you were calling me to make sure she was who she said she was?"_

"Essentially." Though he could still decidedly smell a rat. "Oh, and one more thing."

Evy sighed. Seriously, one day the woman was going to heave a massive sigh and deflate and disappear. _"That's your 'do me a favour' voice. I don't like that voice."_

Each to their own. "Do you remember a bloke called Percy Golding?"

_"_ _That pillock that dodged the draft because of Daddy's money?"_

It made Jonathan feel a little bit better to know that he wasn't alone in his deep-seated resentment. "The very one. Apparently he's decided on a course of becoming a philanthropist and is sponsoring Magnusson's project."

 _"_ _You want me to check him out to make sure he's doing what he says he's doing?"_ Evy's voice was brighter now she had a mission, and he wondered how boring his sister's life must be to jump on a mission from her dodgy older brother like a starving dog on a scrap of rotting meat.

"Someone's running a con here, I just need to figure it out."

 _"_ _You're going to get shot."_ His little sister cautioned.

"Staying on my toes keeps me spry." Jonathan said. "The fastest way to discover a trap is to spring it."

_"_ _With your influence, no wonder Alex is the way he is."_

"Then you shouldn't have left him with me during the second kick-off." As far as Jonathan was concerned, WWII was basically Act II of the Great War, with the same premise, the same key players, and two entirely different generations of young men to physically and mentally maim. Even now he occasionally saw the shadows flickering at the edges of his vision, people long gone, mates lost in time. He could dust a mummy, no problem, but hand him a needle and thread and tell him to save the life of some fifteen-year-old with his legs blown off, and he was liable to go to pieces.

Jonathan's hand clenched, and then released. _Focus on the problem at hand, old boy._ "So anyway, since you're there in merry ol' England, I thought you'd be the perfect gal to stick her nose in."

 _"_ _Flattery won't get you anywhere."_ She said. _"And how do I contact you when I've got the intel?"_

Intel. Very eye-spy. "Since I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to end up, I'll call you."

They nattered on about a few other things after that, Jonathan perfect happy to whittle away at Percy's expense account. It seemed Evy was stuck in a rut with her Scarlet O'Keefe books, her agent suggesting to spin the series off with a new main character. Evy, of course, had taken that to mean a new main _male_ character, therefore she was currently not speaking to her agent. Jonathan didn't tell his sister about the priestess, there was no way he was going to ruffle her feathers even more.

He hung up, satisfied that he'd made a sizable dent in Percy's pocketbook, and went to sleep counting the gold bars.


	3. Chapter 3

Jonathan Carnahan was yet to hear a story end well that started with the words _so I walked into this pub in Berlin_ , and looking around himself right now, he was pretty sure he wasn't exactly going to break with tradition. Magnusson strode through the roughnecks and bell-ends like she belonged, towing along Jonathan and Percy in her wake.

This time Jonathan ordered the drinks, and as he turned from the bar, he realised that everyone was staring at him like he'd just walked into a saloon in the American West and asked for a sarsaparilla.

"Evening all."

It took him an embarrassingly long moment to realise that it was 1947, he was from London, and he was ordering drinks from a Berlin pub in English. Not one of his more thought-out moments, but hindsight was a marvellous thing.

He handed Magnusson a glass of wine and lifted the bottle on the way past.

The Nordic archaeologist led them confidently through the clouds of opium and tobacco smoke, weaving around massive walls of men that made all six feet of O'Connell look positively petite. Jonathan took a pull on the bottle, feeling his reserves of liquid courage getting a little low. Magnusson waved aside a thick cloud of tobacco smoke, revealing a grand old snooker table.

Suddenly Jonathan was inundated with memories of being perched on the edge of another snooker table from long ago, watching his father and his father's mates sinking shots, his old man joking that pretty soon the only thing he'd have left to bet would be his firstborn.

Too taken with the wooden beauty, it took him a moment to really notice the people caught up in their game. Two men were currently running the table, one massive wall of muscle and another of perhaps Jonathan's height but slim and wiry like a sprinter. Each of them looked up quickly and then dismissed them to get back to their game. A none-too-small stack of bills spoke of the fact that the game had already been running for perhaps several hours.

The only one that seemed to notice their arrival at all was a bear of a man that had been sitting in the corner, rocking back on a wooden chair until the legs squealed in protest and sipping from a bottle filled with clear liquid. Judging by the militaristic greatcoat, cropped hair and gold stars on the red bars on his shoulders, Jonathan highly doubted he was drinking water.

"Magnus, _присоединяйся ко мне."_

Russian. Definitely not water, then.

"Not at the moment." Magnusson dismissed the invitation for drinks, speaking English, though Jonathan didn't know whether that was for his benefit, or Golding's. Jonathan wouldn't exactly classify himself as fluent, but he knew enough to be able to tell when someone was talking about taking him for the long walk in their own language. It was a self-preservation instinct to know when he was being scammed. To this date, even his sister didn't know he could speak and understand Russian, French, German, Arabic, Greek, Italian and Chinese, as Evy was incapable of keeping a secret and sometimes it worked very well to his advantage to be thought of as just another daft Englishman.

He made no bones about being a shifty bastard. Sometimes he rather enjoyed it.

"Captain Vasily Dragovitch." Magnusson introduced. "Dr Jonathan Carnahan. Vasily is our pilot."

Ah, of course. How come every pilot Jonathan knew or had ever met was drunk of their arse? He should just expect it by now.

The Russian gave him a long assessing sweeping look, like Jonathan was standing in a windowed shop front in Amsterdam in his smalls, and he was not particularly impressed by what he saw. His lips thinned. "Da. I suppose he'll have to do, then."

The words were said with the reluctant air of a bloke looking at a working girl with the face of a horse and the charm of a spaniel, but knowing she was the last available girl in the whorehouse and he'd been suck in the desert for six years. Any port in a storm and all that. "Nice to meet you too." Jonathan chirped back cheerily. In his experience, there was nothing more annoying than simply being cheerful. He could get a man to show his true colours in half an hour by just being his optimistic, smiley self.

"The more the merrier." The Russian lent back in his chair casually, and Jonathan tried to stop his friendly grin from turning into a smirk. _You're going to be a hard one to crack, old chum_. _I enjoy a challenge._ "As I always say."

There was a sudden commotion at the snooker table, and momentarily startled, Jonathan looked over his shoulder.

And immediately wished he hadn't.

The men were staring daggers at them, or, more pointedly, staring at _him_.

Bugger.

"No." The little guy said in the broad bastard accent of an American that had lived overseas for most of his life. Great, more sodding Americans. His hair and eyes were pitch black, his swarthy features with a sharp Japanese cut to them. "Nope, that's it. Count me out."

"Well, _excuse_ me." Okay, Jonathan was _slightly_ affronted. Common decency demanded that he'd at least get the chance to open his trap before they decided he was a bad sort. Still, his wide and varied career repeatedly assured him that Americans _had_ no common decency. "I thought you wanted the Americans kept out of this?" He asked Magnusson pointedly.

There was a snort from the big muscle-bound man, blonde hair cropped close to his head and a square jaw so strong that looked like it could hammer in nails. "Right. He's as American as French toast is French."

Jonathan looked at the scary-looking German fellow. The bloke had a voice like a wet cloth being dragged across gravel. His eyes wandered down to the fellow's massive scarred and calloused paws than Jonathan could all-too-easily imagine throttling the life out of him. It seemed that no matter where he was, his fate was to be continuously bombarded with Adonis-like examples of male masculinity to remind him of his own shortcomings as the runt of the litter. Jonathan knew he wasn't exactly the tallest or most well-built of men, but _really._

"Kurt Steiner, our military historian." Magnusson introduced, unshaken by the quite frankly vulgar display of masculinity, and Jonathan wasn't just thinking that because he was a foot shorter and his biceps were at most half the size. "And that's Andy Hallet, the… he's in human resources."

Her words were delicate and Jonathan just looked at her. Oh, that didn't sound terribly suspicious at _all_. He took a second look at the skinny fellow, now recognising the weasely sneakiness of a man who for the right price would have somehow managed to get you a rocket launcher in the middle of rural Cardiff.

"Andy's American by way of Kent. I find that it's the accent that throws most people."

Right. Only the _accent_ threw people..

Jonathan's eyebrows rose. "Kent?" Normally he prided himself on his ability to spot an Englishman abroad. Generally they were the ones drinking the local establishments dry and trying to impress on the natives the language of Mother England by simply speaking louder and slower, like that would somehow help matters. "The American has won out in you, old chum."

The old chap gave him a foul glare before giving Magnusson a disgruntled look like a little boy being told off by Mammy.

"I don't have an accent." He said grumpily to Magnusson, who shrugged a shoulder and pulled out a chair beside the Drunken Russian, completely at ease. In a flash, Jonathan could see the four of them in their all-weather clothes, sitting around a campfire somewhere among the ruins of a long-gone civilisation drinking booze and probably talking about the latest tax reforms or some such inane piece of garbage that seemed comically out of place. Charmingly eccentric, Jonathan's mother would say whenever he got into trouble with his teachers for being a rabble-rousing menace. Again. Sometimes he wondered how that woman managed to maintain that much faith in him when he constantly disproved her at every turn. Even Evy gave up eventually.

The only odd one out in the equation seemed Percy. Maybe it was because he was new to this endeavour, but Jonathan couldn't quite see how Percy Golding, with his family money, stupidly age-defying looks and inability to detect this thing called sarcasm fit into their crew. He couldn't see the bloke with his carefully-sculpted golden curls and lily-white hands down in the dirt with gravel in his boots and mud in his pants unearthing a Saxon warrior with a paintbrush and tweezers over the course of several interminable weeks. He stuck out like dog's bollocks.

_Money,_ he told himself. _It makes the world go 'round._

The Japanese-American-English-whatever brandished a threatening finger at him. "I don't like it."

"Why, Mr Hallet, and we've only just met." On average, he'd calculated that it took around half a day of almost continual contact with someone before they decided that they loathed him. Generally it was the length of time it took for them to sober up and realise that Jonathan was halfway across the country with the contents of their purse, the deed to their house, and/or the signed rights to their first-born son.

Hallet ignored him. "Do you know the mortality rates of the dig crews that've worked for the Carnahans since the 1800s? Almost 100 percent!"

"Now wait a minute-" While Jonathan was perfectly willing to admit that was abundantly the case with any expedition that had the misfortune to involve him or his sister, he realised an instant later that he couldn't name any deaths that had happened on his father's watch, or his grandfather's, though the penny dreadfuls insisted up and down that his parents' deaths were due to a mummy's curse. He really shouldn't have been surprised; a family that had ultimately produced someone like Jonathan himself must have had more than a few scoundrels along the way.

This time Magnusson just rolled her eyes, like an exasperated governess at the end of her tether refusing to engage with a quarrelsome child any more. Surprisingly enough, Golding was the one to jump in.

"And that's why what I'm paying you is higher than the industry standard, old fellow." Percy said somewhat nervously. One glance at Sigrun Magnusson's face told Jonathan that if it wasn't for _her_ , the tight bastard would have been happy to pay the team in fairy dust and magic beans. He took another swig from the wine bottle to disguise the slight tremor that had started in his left hand. Bloody nervous tics.

Andy Hallet gave a disdainful sniff and made a production of turning his back on Jonathan as he got back to the snooker game like the mature adult he obviously wasn't. As the German watched bemusedly, Percy hovered over the table like a concerned maiden auntie trying to break up a fight by offering to break out the sweeties.

_Well, I never._

Steiner just looked at Hallet with a pitying expression. "You are such a woman."

"Fuck you, mate."

"Buy me a drink first."

Jonathan shook his head, feeling like he had been dropped into Never-Never Land. Keeping one eye on the snooker table, he pulled out a chair to sit at the table with Magnusson, Dragovitch and Golding, feeling somewhat like a spare part. "So, what's the plan from here, milady?"

"Be sure to be up early tomorrow. We'll be heading out to Wewelsburg Castle in Buren."

Of course, go right to the heart of where Himmler had his little crackpot setup where he may or may not have held ceremonies to summon the Dark Lord himself. Jonathan really should have seen that coming.

"Ah, hasn't the property been seized by the government?"

Not that Jonathan was a stranger to a bracing spot of break and enter, but he _was_ getting older, after all. Some things were best left to the younger generation.

"And Himmler had his goons try and blow the place up in '45 when they lost the ticket? Not that they did a proper job of it, mind."

There was a hint of amusement in Magnusson's eyes. "Kurt knows someone." She said delicately.

Ah, the old _know a guy_ thing, Jonathan was on familiar ground there. "He _knows_ someone."

She made a noise of assent and Jonathan nodded to himself. The doctor would hardly be the only archaeologist to overlook the dubious qualities of their guide in the pursuit of the end goal. After all, that was the whole reason his sister was even married. Jonathan looked at the bottle of wine he was holding, not sure whether he should set it aside for the night so he was stone-cold sober in the morning, or maybe if it'd all be easier if he approached this whole situation three sheets to the wind.

Then he looked up at the Russian who was losing himself in another vodka, grimacing as it burned down his throat, and Jonathan wrinkled his nose, pushing the wine aside.

Best not.

* * *

The rebuilding of Germany was beginning, but slowly. Jonathan was very careful not to speak; having a feeling that his accent would not assure him a pleasant arrival to his destination, as hard as it was to keep particular… _opinions_ to himself. Children ran wild in the streets and starving men and women stared at the passersby with hollow eyes and Jonathan's pocket was picked three times, but he hadn't put his wallet actually _in_ his pocket in decades, so really wasn't that bothered. Holdovers from a misspent youth and all that.

A nice brisk wind swirled around the site, and Jonathan winced as he shrugged down into his jacket. He briefly wondered whether his aversion to the cold had been caused by his dwelling in dry climes for the majority of his life, but then he noticed Magnusson and Steiner hunch down into their coats and felt better about his internal whinging.

There was a decidedly shifty-looking chap waiting for them on the steps of Wewelsburg Castle in the uniform of the newly-formed caretaker government. He handed Steiner a key on a brass tag, which honestly seemed rather redundant since there was a _massive hole_ _in_ _the_ _wall_. "You have a day." And then he was off to a battered military-issue all-terrain vehicle like someone had lit a fire under his bum and the hounds of hell were after him.

"Hmm." Jonathan mused.

Looking back, he found himself quite surprised that Percy had let them out without supervision, since the old fellow seemed to hover around them all like a bloody persistent ghost.

He followed Magnusson and Steiner into the castle, stepping over rubble and debris, looking around dubiously. As well as they should, it was terribly obvious that all the reconstruction efforts weren't exactly being geared towards restoring edifices of dubious significance, but still the effect was that Jonathan half-expected the whole place to come down about their ears.

"This place ought to be condemned."

"Is that your professional opinion?" the German asked wryly, locking the door behind them. The bloke's hands, though massive, were decidedly wirier than his bulk would suggest, like a fellow that had lost and then gained a lot of weight in rapid succession, and Jonathan realised that he'd seen – and treated – those same effects before. Many times before.

_Ah._

A number was tattooed on his weathered hand above his thumb.

Ah.

_Perhaps a conversation best left for another time._

Jonathan brushed aside all the awkward possibilities, the things he didn't want to consider even after all this time, and instead turned his attention toward the building in question, trying to marshal his somewhat underused and desiccated archaeological knowledge. Though, truly, he didn't know how much help that would be until they actually _had_ the manuscripts. Right now, all Magnusson seemed to need was someone with a working knowledge of German and reasonable detective skills-

And a nose for treasure.

Ah.

The castle must have been truly something in its heyday, and for someone who had spent the majority of his life in and out of grand manors and forts, that was saying something. Jonathan rested his hand on the fractured banister that led to the upper floors. Himmler's people hadn't done a very good job with demolishing the building after they'd stripped it bare, leaving it in ruins but _hardly_ entirely destroyed, amateurs. But sometime in the intervening years the revolutionaries had smashed their way in and redecorated the ancient artifice in the distinct style of 'disaffected youth'. Jonathan understood the compulsion, but honestly, the building dated back five hundred years, for heaven's sake. It was good his sister wasn't here, because she'd already be on her soapbox ranting about the destruction of history through the innate evils of humanity, or some such.

"Remind me again of why we're here?" Jonathan asked. "The place has been stripped down to the studs. They'll be nothing left."

"I find it's always best to start at the beginning of the story." Magnusson was hunting around in the satchel over her shoulder, flicking out a notepad and pencil.

Oh yes, there was nothing cryptic about that at all. Now this was getting bloody ridiculous.

"Pardon me for my language, Doctor Magnusson, but as someone who is, shall we say, well-versed in the horse-trading business, don't try to sell me an ass and tell me it's a thoroughbred."

For a moment the _I Am A Professional_ smile slipped, a glimmer of annoyance creeping in. She gave the end of her thick plait an agitated tug and groused something in Norwegian that Jonathan, even with only a spotty understanding of the language, knew wasn't exactly complementary towards himself.

"Listen, Carnahan," Magnusson started, voice and face hard, and Jonathan realised that he was intimately acquainted with that tone, the tone that said that all pretences had been dropped and he was one smart comment away from being socked in the jaw. "You don't want to be here, I understand that. I do not particularly want you here either."

"Why, Doctor, tell me what you really think!"

Her narrowed eyes told him he was another step closer to a smack. "I am going to be straight with you."

"Please do."

"I never wanted you here."

"Be blunt, why don't you."

"I am perfectly capable of finding the Library." She said.

"I have no doubt, but yet once again I find myself asking what exactly I'm doing here."

The woman eyed him up with all the measured coldness of an asp deciding if they could take down a water buffalo. Then her nose wrinkled.

"You tell that Golding I told you this and-"

"Yes, yes, it'll be the end of the line, I won't have to worry about not getting paid, I better hope I don't meet you in a dark alley, you'll cut my testicles off and mail them to my mother, etcetera, etcetera." Jonathan had heard them all, he _genuinely_ had heard them all. "Why were you even in Peru?"

"Kurt."

Jonathan glanced back to where the German was patiently waiting by the door. He couldn't tell by the man's expression whether he could hear them or not.

"Kurt and I were following a lead."

"In Peru?" His eyes narrowed. Then it hit him and he could have slapped himself.

"Following a lead? Hold your horses, are you telling me you were looking for a _Nazi_?"

He'd kept abreast of the whole situation, of course, a couple of his old mates in the Home Office that he'd been with in the trenches giving him a tip and a wink for old time's sake. If the good old US of A didn't black-bag them in the middle of the night and spirit them away to never be seen again, then more commonly than not the fleeing Nazis seemed to all end up in South America.

Of bloody course.

Oh, Good Lord, how did this sort of thing keep happening to him? Was this some sort of cosmic payback for being too obnoxious? Not that he was about to _stop_ , mind, but it was a fantastic cautionary tale to tell his nephew the next time he was being a spoilt little prat.

"We were following a _lead_." Magnusson repeated just as forcefully. "Golding discovered that you were staying in the same hotel as our meet, and he insisted on recruiting you."

"And I suppose you had absolutely no objections whatsoever? Some unqualified stranger bombing into your hand-picked cohesive line-up and throwing off team spirit?"

She gave a breezy _Not My Business_ smile. "None at all."

He snorted. "Oh, _bullocks_."

Well, he supposed that explained why they just _happened_ to be in Peru, a least. Jonathan frowned.

"Why?"

Surely Percy wouldn't have been as petty to insist that Jonathan join his expedition simply to rub his success in Jonathan's face after all these years. _Surely._

But then again, _he'd_ invited a bunch of people that he hated with the burning passion of a thousand suns when he had the grand opening of _Imhoteps_ , so…

"The Goldings have been financing our last three digs." Magnusson sighed. "But no matter how much acclaim or money came our way, Percy was always, how you say… dissatisfied. He was looking for something else, which became apparent when my university approached me about this job." Her nose wrinkled. "He was _excited_. I have not met any other man excited about the opportunity to chase after _books_."

Well, you could count him out on that. The only thing that got Jonathan interested in hunting for a book last time a couple of decades ago was the teeny, tiny inconsequential fact that it happened to be made of gold. Of course, there was the small fact that mummies were involved as a direct consequence, but to each their own. "Do you know what?" Jonathan asked. "Did you ask him?"

"Since he seems to be financing this facade simply to maintain his fiction, I thought it best not to absolve him of his misconception that I was unaware of his ambition." She said delicately.

Dear Christ, this woman ought to be a politician. "And there's the small matter of him and Mummy Dearest financing your digs and that money drying up when he's got what he wanted." Honestly, when had he become such a cynical old fart? Jonathan cast another look at Kurt, who looked through him like he was as inconsequential as a bug. "So you're going to find whatever Percy's looking for and get to it first. Stealing from your financier? Excuse me, but _now_ who's the tomb raider?"

Magnusson snorted. "Don't use that high-and-mighty tone with me, Carnahan. You're not any better than me. _I_ want to save these artefacts and return them to their rightful place, not sell them on to cover my drinking tab for the night."

All right, _that_ smarted. It might have been true, but it still smarted. "I see Percy's been telling tales."

"Hm."

The two of them looked at each other for a long moment, and in Jonathan's experience this sort of tightrope tension was usually a prelude to either a punch or a snog. Much to his eternal shame, option two wasn't looking like it was likely any time soon, or even in his limited lifetime. More's the pity.

"What did Percy say to you when he saw me?" Jonathan was the first to break the stalemate. Curiosity killed the cat, after all. "Exactly?"

"Just that you would be a good fit for my expedition. Nothing else."

Well, that was a blow to the old self-esteem. "Nothing else?"

Magnusson gave him a narrow-eyed look. "What else do you want me to say?" She asked bluntly.

"Nothing, really." Jonathan stuffed his hands in his pockets and kicked at an invisible rock. "Just… Percy and I have what you would call a rather _spotty_ history together."

Her expression invited him to elaborate. "Yes?"

"You see, I'm a liar."

Her brows rose, the wry twist of her mouth saying _colour me stunned_. "Normally I have to get a man drunk before he will admit to something like that."

"I am what is known as a self-serving bum." Jonathan said. "And I'm only a little bit drunk."

The all-too-serious atmosphere cracked, and Magnusson actually smiled. _Well, would you look at that, there's actually a_ woman _underneath all that tweed._

"The thing is, no matter my scheme, I never actually _hurt_ anyone. Golding, someone's getting hurt." He chewed his lip. "Most likely me."

"Oh, please-"

"I almost _died_ in an Arabian prison because he fingered me for picking the pocket of a visiting Imam."

Crikey, there was that _look_ again. "Are you telling me you didn't?"

"Of course I did!" Jonathan hurried. "But that's not the point! He tipped off the sheriff and didn't even give me a count-of-ten head start! Oxford rules! He even pushed me down the stairs at Eton!"

"Children can be cruel."

"It was _five_ _years_ ago." _All right, old son, get a grip. No one needs to see any more of the dirty laundry._ Jonathan rubbed the bridge of his nose. "The point is, whenever Percy Golding is involved, I _always_ end up getting shafted, so any prior warning to any nefarious schemes would be greatly appreciated."

The doctor just looked at him, and Jonathan genuinely couldn't tell whether she was buying the story or not, as her poker-face was exquisite. He was _definitely_ taking her with him the next time he played cards with the boys.

"All I can say, Doctor Carnahan, was that after Kurt and I came back from meeting with our… contact, Mr Golding was happy. Delighted. In fact, he insisted on buying the boys rounds that night, which never happens and they gladly took advantage of, so he was very happy when we got down to the bar."

Jonathan couldn't help but smile. "Doctor Magnusson, did you take advantage of a pissed man by exploiting him for information during his inebriation? I'm surprised at you!"

"I did no such thing. I merely made a casual enquiry."

"Doc, as much as I'm enjoying this back and forth, you're _reeeally_ starting to milk this whole thing just a _teeny_ bit." Jonathan said. "What did he say?"

"He said you were the key to everything. You, specifically."

He frowned. "Beg pardon?"

"Those were the words exactly. You were the _key_."


	4. Chapter 4

"I had no idea what I was looking at."

Well, that was painfully obvious, just wandering around a Nazi castle that he might fall through the floor of at any moment, staring at the occult voodoo-hoodoo stuff on the walls like he was a depressingly bad art critic and this was a murder-chic art installation. All he could see in his mind's eye was his sister, puttering around and exclaiming over the meaning of this and that while Rick broke things.

Lord, that man broke _so_ many things.

"I don't even know what I was looking _for._ "

Good Lord, was Magnusson having him on? Or was she just ratty that Percy called him the 'key' and had decided to humiliate him for good measure? This wasn't even his field of study, for crying out loud, the blasted woman couldn't hold _that_ against him, surely.

"She could have at least let me have a peek at her notes."

Gosh, haven't said _that_ since university.

Steiner gave a dry chuckle that reminded Jonathan of Ardeth as the two of them walked down the street back toward where the car was parked. Magnusson was somewhat in front of them, bent over her notebook as she walked, steering around furrows and potholes like she possessed a personal form of radar. Evy would have walked into ten different people and probably a bus if she'd tried the same thing.

"I have worked with the doctor before, those… outside consultants-" Okay, Jonathan _definitely_ didn't like the way he said that- "Magnus likes to…"

"Roast their balls over an open flame while she cackles over her caldron like one of those jolly lady witches from the Scottish play as they send that fellow Mister Macbeth on his merry-old way?"

The German gave a surprisingly baritone laugh. "I see Doctor Magnusson has made quite the impression on you."

"You could say that." Jonathan groused.

Steiner grinned. "So, I am taking it that you haven't managed to charm her yet?"

He blinked in alarm. _You're getting dangerously transparent in your old age, old boy._ "What? Charm? Who said anything about charming?"

The big man's eyes swung forward. "It just strikes me that you are…"

Uh oh. "Yes?"

"You just strike me as the kind of man that came from money, landed gentry, yes?" Kurt shrugged. "You know. Pretentious. Spoilt. Denial means that he thinks he can talk his way out of any situation, no matter how serious." He said. " _Golding's_ type."

Jonathan deflated. "I am _not_ like Percy Golding."

"No offence meant."

Uh huh. That makes it all better.

He sighed. "Originally, I would have to agree with you, old chum. Then, well. My parents… died, my uncle tried to basically sell my sister while I was serving in Palestine, spent all our money, we moved to Egypt where there was a whole _thing_ -" Jonathan stopped. "Why am I even telling you this?"

"I just have one of those faces, friend." Steiner slapped his shoulder cheerfully, the big man almost sending Jonathan sprawling on his face in the mud. The German's smile softened. "My family owned a duchy not far from here. The land was seized by the NSDAP in 1939 because my father was a titled Jew."

Bloody hell. There was nothing in the world that would make you feel like a whining child quicker than listening to the tales of a German Jew.

"Then I suppose we're a pair of dispossessed gentlemen, eh, old chap?"

"'Dispossessed gentlemen'." He grinned. "I don't mind that."

Jonathan smirked back.

And to him it was about then that Steiner became Kurt.

"I would not worry about Magnusson." Kurt said. "She likes, how you say, to expose her outside contractors to the site without any context to see what their unbiased first impressions are."

"Oh, that makes it all right now." Jonathan said. "My first impression was, that was a waste of time."

The German cocked an eyebrow. "Perhaps not _tell_ Magnus that, yes?"

"Believe me, mate, I'm not quite ready to shuffle off this mortal coil quite yet." While honestly, Magnusson had a sound strategy, Jonathan would be lying if he said he wasn't annoyed, being dragged out here in the cold and the wet and the _mud_ and all, when he could have just been in bed.

He stopped before getting into the car, the door handle in his hand. Doctor Magnusson looked at Jonathan out through her window and cranked the window down.

"Doctor Carnahan?"

Ah, back to _doctor,_ now.

"What are we _doing_?"

"Jonathan?"

"You brought me here to get my unbiased first impressions." Jonathan looked down at her. "And I have to say-"

In the driver seat, Kurt's hand went to his forehead exasperatedly. "You have no concept of self-preservation at all, do you?"

"What can I say, I'm a little dickens." Jonathan said. "My first impression was that this was a _massive_ waste of time."

"Is that so."

It wasn't a question. The look on her face was frosty. Prior experience told him to back away quietly to save face, but Jonathan's ego demanded him to justify himself.

"What are we even _doing_ here? I know this was where the majority of the library was stored, but the place was stripped. I'm surprised they didn't rip up the floorboards."

"They did in the outbuildings." Kurt said. Magnusson glared.

"No, no, you're getting me wrong!" Jonathan spread his arms wide. "You said the manuscripts were smuggled past the Russians on a train loaded with gold to throw off the Allies. Gold! Money! Cold, hard cash!"

Kurt and Magnusson exchanged a glance that he recognised as clearly saying _Jonathan's off his rocker again. "_ Listen! So why are we _here_? The Germans are the most efficient people in the world. They wouldn't have just lost a train-full of gold without filling in the correct forms, yes?"

He just got two blank looks in reply, like he was trying to be funny and failing spectacularly. Jonathan knew he had only moments to make his sell.

"So who in the world is guaranteed to keep records of, say, the very moment each employee has a bowel movement, for instance?"

Jonathan's smile faded as they continued to stare at him.

"A bank, people! Good Lord, does no one have any comprehension of fiscal responsibility anymore?" He huffily put his hands on his hips. "The one that was treated like old Hitler's personal piggy-bank."

"You're talking about the Reichsbank?" Kurt asked cautiously.

Jonathan felt inordinately pleased with himself. But then, he pretty much always felt inordinately pleased with himself.

"Damned right."

* * *

Naturally enough, the Federal Republic of Germany, staffed with native Germans and Allies (honestly, one of the reasons Jonathan had gone to China in the first place was to get _away_ from the Frenchmen), refused them access to any banking records, even when Kurt flashed Percy's pocketbook to the clerk. Jonathan half-expected their names were now on some kind of watch list. Of course, it wouldn't exactly be his first time on a shoot-first list. His parents would have been so proud.

The economy was on the verge of cardiac arrest, groaning under the weight of reparations now from two wars, and communist and anti-communist tensions were rife. Jonathan had seen those sort of tensions arise twice now, and both times had led directly to a needless world conflict and millions of deaths. But maybe they'd be able to dodge the bullet now, right?

His mother always impressed on him the importance of remaining positive, but sometimes _it was so bloody hard._ There was a difference between optimism and outright delusion.

"All right." He refused to let his optimism wane now that he had finally caught onto an avenue of enquiry that might actually _work_. "No worries. They wouldn't have had what we need anyway!"

"Uh huh." Andy Hallet, the American hybrid, folded his arms. "What are you smoking and can I get some?"

"None of your business, you couldn't afford it, and I don't share anyhow with dilettantes who don't know their limit and would probably kill themselves if I did. I don't need that on my conscience." Jonathan immediately shot back.

Hallet sniffed. "You don't _have_ a conscience."

"Boys." Magnusson said wearily.

Jonathan straightened his tie. "Anyway, getting back on track-"

"What about a train?" Dragovitch asked, as ever only picking up a few choice words in whatever was being said, once again into his cups. Honestly, his brain was probably half-pickled by now.

"Now I feel comforted that _this_ is the guy responsible to get us country-to-country alive." Hallet said, honestly echoing Jonathan's thoughts. "Could you been any _more_ off your head?"

"Da, but it's not even lunchtime."

"Well, a man has to have some standards."

" _Enough_." The voice cracked over all of them like a whip, and Jonathan's head was filled with visions of the five-foot-nothing nun that had taught him Maths one memorable summer, a tyrant in a wimple with a leathery face like an old shoe. He looked across the room to where Doctor Magnusson was sitting in an armchair, one leg hooked over her other knee, a glass of wine in hand, and a look on her face like she was one asinine comment away from firing all of them. Perhaps out of a cannon.

Dead silence, like he was back in the seminary all over again.

She indicated Jonathan with a tip of her glass. "Proceed."

He swallowed. Honestly, Jonathan didn't know whether he should continue with his crackpot plan or just plead guilty, your honour.

"Yes, well, I was saying-" _Pull your socks up, old boy. You're stumbling about like a fifth year that's never been kissed._ "The old chaps in the Nazi party knew that the Allies were coming from them, so they'd make sure anything incriminating – I mean _really_ incriminating – wouldn't fall into Russian hands. So, ipso facto, the real records would be where they always were, just waiting for an enterprising few to discover them, by chance, of course."

"Whoa, hold up, fella." Hallet folded his arms. "Are you suggesting, _seriously_ suggesting, that we break into the _Reichsbank_?"

And suddenly Jonathan was acutely aware of everyone looking at him.

"Well, unless our old mate Kurt over here has yet another friend we could exploit…"

Kurt shook his head. "When you say it likes that, it sounds… sleazy."

Jonathan gave a winning smile. "Because this little crew is _such_ a font of upright morality and honesty the very _notion_ of sleaze is unbelievable."

Dragovitch laughed.

"You are suggesting robbing a bank." Magnusson said flatly.

"No! I'm suggesting we just pop in for a visit and borrow something they don't even know is there!" Jonathan said. "And it hasn't been a bank since 1945."

"No." Kurt said. "Only East Berlin's finance ministry."

"Only?" Hallet asked. " _Only_? Is everyone here completely off their tits? We'll be spirited off to the gulags before our feet touch the ground!"

Jonathan could see that another round of arguments was about to start, and he wasn't that much of a masochist to go through yet another series of nonsensical yelling and accusations of mental instability. He got enough of that when he visited his nephew.

"All _right!_ " The way it was going, someone was about to get punched, and Jonathan had enough of always being the one on the receiving end. "First thing-" he pointed at Hallet. "Russians have gulags, not Germans. Second, I never actually said anything about _breaking in_ , I'm not a _complete_ imbecile. Scoff if you will."

"Scoff." Hallet said.

Jonathan ignored the irritating little man. "And what you few, you _charming_ few seem to be forgetting is that there is actually supposed to be another member of this little soirée of conspirators."

"What?"

The door from the restaurant opened and in burst Percy Golding in a flurry of activity and a cloud of something that smelt suspiciously of ladies' perfume, in a brilliant blue brocade three-piece suit, not a wavy golden hair out of place, brilliant white smile in place like he was already ready to start charming the socks and other intimate apparel off people.

That smile dipped as he saw that it was only the five of them in the private room. "What on earth are you all doing hidden away back here? The party is outside!"

His expression turned nervous as he realised that each of them was looking at him speculatively. Dragovitch in particular looked like he was genuinely considering exactly how hungry he'd have to be before he ate him.

"Ah, what are you all looking at me like that for?" He looked to Jonathan, like _he_ was going to suddenly become the font of knowledge that made everything clear. Honestly, the naivety was like the man had somehow forgotten that Jonathan was the one that had filled his school port with horse manure, those three times. And somehow each time didn't get any less funny.

"No." But Magnusson's answer didn't have the unshakable rigidity of a true _no_ , more like she was debating with herself, and he could decidedly hear the question mark as she asked herself: she'd already bent the rules to get this far, how much further could she go?

"Yes." Jonathan countered. "We take the tour, and then just… happen to get _lost_ looking for the WC. Bing bang boom, mission's a go."

"You're going to get killed," said Andy Hallet, voice of death and destruction and just a fair old Gloomy Gus, if Jonathan did say so himself.

"Well, possible suicide, secret police, and fascist witches." Dragovitch mopped his moustache with a napkin to wipe away the ale's frothy head and whatever else had congealed there in the meantime, small rodents and suchlike. Jonathan screwed up his nose. "Who wants to live forever? I'm in."

But poor old Percy was looking around himself in bewilderment like he'd somehow walked into another reality.

"I have no idea what on earth any of you are talking about."

Jonathan clapped him on the shoulder.

"Just nod and smile, old chum, and I'm sure you'll pick it up along the way."


	5. Chapter 5

"I can't _believe_ you've got me doing this," Percy hissed. "If I die, I'm going to kill you."

"Just be cheery and be charming and we'll be fine." Jonathan said. "I never _asked_ to be here, you know. I can still walk away and you can hire someone _else_ to think outside the box for you. Despite evidence to the contrary, I _do_ in fact have a life."

Magnusson shot Percy a _look_ , and the man wilted _._ Jonathan wished he had that power. "No, I'm sorry." He said it with the disgruntled air of a child apologising because Mother was standing over his shoulder with a switch. "I am just… worried. There's so many things that could go wrong-"

"Oh, tosh. Do you actually _want_ to find this library or not? All you have to do is what you do best." Jonathan straightened his tie and smoothed his waistcoat, trying to project _competent_ , something he hadn't done since he'd grovelled to get the bank loan for his nightclub all those years ago.

"Eat oysters out the back of the Fox & Hound under a sycamore tree with a freshly-squeezed lemonade?" He asked sourly.

Magnusson and Jonathan just _looked_ at him.

"First of all, I hate you." Jonathan said. "Second, smile and keep talking, you dolt, and maybe do that twinkle thing."

Percy frowned at him in confusion. " _What_ twinkle thing?"

Oh Lord, it was like trying to explain the concept of table manners to Rick O'Connell.

"You know, that _twinkle thing_ you do when you're trying to charm someone's knickers off."

The confusion on the man's face cleared as he _got_ it.

Magnusson darkly muttered something. "Just so you know, you are both disgusting."

Jonathan coloured. "Sorry."

"It's not my business." She said. "I certainly don't intend to sleep with either of you."

"Harsh." Percy winced. "You could at least pretend."

Jonathan shrugged. "You wouldn't exactly be the first lady to pretend Perce's as witty and charming and interesting as he thinks he is just for his money."

Percy blushed a brilliant red while Magnusson just glared at Jonathan. Maybe he was going to get that right hook after all.

A car horn honked. Andy Hallet and Captain Dragovitch were back from wherever they'd disappeared to, and now Hallet was behind the wheel of a fancy Mercedes, dressed in a velvet driver's uniform and peaked cap. Jonathan suspected that both had been procured with the tried and true five-fingered discount.

The fellow cranked down the window. "Ya ready to go or should we just circle around the block a couple more times until you've finished your domestics?"

"Little smartarse." Jonathan muttered.

"That's _Mister_ Little Smartarse, thank you."

Then Captain Dragovitch stepped out of the backseat, and Jonathan had to do a double-take.

His wild tawny hair had been tamed and combed away from his forehead and looked like it had been glued to his scalp with enough oil that Jonathan could have scraped it off and cooked a full English for each of them, and his mountain-man beard had been shaved off exposing what looked like knife-fight scars. In a dark suit with tell-tale bulges under each arm, he was the splitting image of the sort of heavy that a representative from the House of Lords would theoretically have in his employ.

And then he opened his mouth, and the illusion was shattered.

"I haven't had anything to drink in twelve hours, so nobody better _shit_ me."

Oh, God.

Jonathan could see two possibilities here. Either the thing would work and they'd actually have some sort of starting point for this ridiculous treasure hunt, or they'd all die magnificently. It would be his fifth obituary. He had clippings. He knew he should have updated his Last Will and Testament. "When we get there, old fellow? Just… Don't talk. Even if someone says something to you, don't talk ever."

Dragovitch smiled at him, and the effect was actually quite frightening. In lieu of words, he simply raised his middle finger. Jonathan's mouth quirked.

"That's the ticket."

Jonathan sat beside Sigrun Magnusson on the ride, the woman's expression carefully blank. Across the car, however, Percy Golding looked like he was about to pass a brick.

"Can you please try to look a little less like you're doing a massive _poo_ in the middle of Leichester Square?" Jonathan hissed.

Percy glared back.

"Have we got all our roles?" Lord, he sounded like his old drama coach, the time Jonathan was forced to play Desdemona in school. "Hallet, with the car, and do please be ready to nick off at a moment's notice. Dragovitch, just look threatening, but by _God_ , don't speak to anyone. Yes, just like that. And ease off on the hand gestures, if you _do_ mind. And Doctor Magnusson, _try_ to be charming."

"I am always charming."

Jonathan wasn't even going to _touch_ that. "Perce, remember your lines?"

"I think so."

"Just pretend that you're a rich entitled man-child and roll with that."

Another glare. "And what exactly, pray tell, will _you_ be doing?"

Jonathan brushed non-existent dust off his jacket. "As the invisible man among this motley crew I'll just happen to take a wrong turn and unfortunately get lost."

Ha. And to think people had been telling him to get lost for years.

"I really think that I-" Magnusson started.

"No." Jonathan said, indicating the camera sitting in her lap. "You're supposed to be the journalist, there to make Percy look good to all the boys and girls back home."

She looked irritated at the interruption. "I could help -"

"You're a woman, doc, and men remember a lone woman, no matter what she looks like."

"What exactly is _that_ supposed to mean?"

Christ, he really did have a death wish, didn't he? "Anyway, Percy, we're supposed to be meeting with a junior minister called Fritz Hansberg. Try to sound convincing."

"We're here, idiots." Hallet called. The car stopped. "Game faces on."

Jonathan swallowed. This was either going to be the smartest or stupidest thing he had ever done.

The old Reichsbank building towered above them and Jonathan felt suddenly grateful that he hadn't had breakfast as his stomach came over all queasy. It was one thing to trick an Arab sheik out of his palace in a game of cards, but this was going to take more than a hidden ace and an extra seven. "Let's go before I realise how much of a rotten idea this really is."

"Now I _really_ feel confident, I might just _pee_ myself with excitement." Hallet said. "Does anyone else feel this confident?"

"Shut up, Andy."

They were kept waiting in the large polished atrium until a little man in an ill-fitting suit and lopsided tie hurried toward them. The whole _I'm a very important man with very important things to do and you're wasting my time_ stride just screamed 'bureaucrat'.

"Fritz Hansberg." He held out a hand. "Herr Golding?"

"About damned time." Percy drew himself up and puffed his chest out like he was auditioning for the role of a Roman emperor and was about to happily throw the Christians to the lions. "Do you know how long I have been waiting? Bloody inefficient, is what it is."

Jonathan inwardly sighed as he lurked in Dragovitch's shadow. Even though it all played into the plan, Percy was the kind of Englishman abroad that made people hate Englishmen abroad.

Hansberg looked at the man with the alarmed expression of one cornered by someone with a shotgun.

"Mr Golding, the Ministry offers – formal apology-" he stuttered in broken English. Jonathan poked Magnusson in the back. _Get on with it, old girl._

"Please forgive Mr Golding's abruptness." She said in fluent German, and the little fellow almost wilted in relief with the knowledge that he wouldn't have to wade his way through a conversation where neither side understood the other. "It has been a… trying few days attempting to secure interviews about the reconstruction."

The way she said it seemed to convey that it was _entirely_ the fault of Percy and his English attitude, and the official's manner eased even further as he recognised an ally, placing himself firmly in her grasp. Jonathan was _definitely_ taking her with him the next time he played cards with the boys.

"Gundrun Vidarrson." The lie rolled easily off her tongue, and Jonathan wondered whether Gundrun was a friend or a sibling or someone she role-played when she was alone. "Reporter. I am contracted to Mr Golding as interpreter."

"Fräulein."

Golding cleared his throat, having been ignored for too long. "Shall we proceed? Oh, and is it all right if… Gundrun snaps off a few?" It genuinely sounded painful, him asking permission for something.

Hansberg nodded. "Welcome, Mr Golding, I have been instructed to answer any queries you may have about the reconstruction, and Ms Vidarrson may certainly take photographs."

Pause for Magnusson's translation. Judging by her tightly-controlled expression, she was already over it, and Jonathan guessed that she was _already_ stuck as the translator between Golding and the rest of her team. Posh-to-Middle Class.

And so the little fellow led them away, chattering away nervously about the reconstruction, the forthcoming replacement of the Reichsmark, and the ongoing chase after those in the NSDAP that had fled before the chaps at Nuremberg could get their hands on them. There was an undertone of panic that said that the bloke was shitting himself at the prospect of the Churchill government personally sending someone from the House of Lords to check up (and boy, was Percy going to _pay_ , with the amount of personal favours Jonathan had called in so their story had credence. Damn it all, he was saving those favours up for the day when he undoubtedly had to get Alex out of jail).

The junior minister led Magnusson and Percy down the hall, Dragovitch following them wordlessly like a ghost, hands clasped professionally behind his back. Hardly anyone paid attention to the big man, the help being virtually invisible wherever you went, a little trick that Jonathan himself was about to employ. Magnusson, Percy, and the captain didn't acknowledge his existence, which meant that the little minister didn't acknowledge it either, which made what happened next almost too easy.

He saw a door tucked away under the stairs and slipped away, finding himself in a cleaner's cupboard. Jonathan slipped off the frumpy painter's smock he was wearing to leave him in the coveralls of the Ministry's cleaning people, courtesy of another favour. He shook the tremors out of his hands.

"Get a grip, you've done this before."

Perhaps, but the last time he'd done the Cleaner Trick he was with his mate Crazy Harry and Evy had been reluctantly roped into the whole thing, downstairs to scream up a storm if he'd been caught so he could slip away into the night like a phantom. Good times.

Jonathan stuck a broom and some random cleaning products into the little cart and off he went.

The trick to not getting rumbled doing something you shouldn't have was to walk with purpose, like you belonged. He had potentially faked his way through _life_ by pretending he was supposed to be there. Jonathan whistled as he walked, stopping here and there for a cursory sweep, and ministers and underlings swept by him without a second glance. Ah, they may have abolished titles, but the class divide was still alive and well.

He slowly worked his way to the freight elevator leading to the second floor, jabbed the button with his elbow, and pushed in the creaky cart.

 _"_ _Guten morgen."_ Jonathan said to the skinny chap in the lift with him.

The fellow pushed his little round spectacles up his nose and pretended that Jonathan didn't exist, pushing past with a clipboard that said he was a _Very Important Person_.

Jonathan's nose wrinkled. _The nerve._

The record rooms had been converted into offices, and Jonathan kind of hoped that he wouldn't have to pick too many locks. He was good, if he did say so himself, but the whole idea was to get in and out as soon as he could, courtesy of the blueprints in his pocket via a fellow he'd met in a pub that one time. It was a bloody good thing so many people owed him. Yes, perhaps they owed him for his… less than legal endeavours, but they owed him just the same.

He stood in the hall, sweeping and whistling as he thought furiously. Now, if _he_ had been part of a crumbling dictatorship with a handful of Top Secret records and the Commies were practically on the doorstep, where would _he_ stuff them? While the obvious answer would be down his pants, if that were the case they wouldn't have a mystery to solve in the first place.

Under his breath he began to sing a Germanic tribal march as he scanned around himself, trying to imagine where Fascist Jonathan would have thought to hide the records, with the knowledge that the Allies would rip up the floors and probably knock through a wall or two.

The vault downstairs? No, that would've been the first thing stripped back.

Hm.

Jonathan worked his way down the hallway, sweeping and dabbing and spraying.

_I wonder if-_

While no one was looking, he let himself into the WC, dragging the cart in behind him.

"You better be right about this, you old fool." After all, there were hundreds of toilets in the building, but _this_ one was closest to where the old records vault had been. Jonathan barred the door with the mop, nose wrinkling as he took in the sight of the chipped porcelain urinals and the vandalised toilet stalls. Oh, the places you'll go.

There was a drain in the centre of the room, blackened and caked with things that he didn't want to think too closely about considering what he was about to do.

Jonathan levered a screwdriver into the floor, easing up the drain cover.

"Oh, God. This is why I _hire_ people to do this sort of thing."

But there, curving around the drain, was a package in a plastic sheet.

Jonathan winced as he reached his hand in and pulled out the package. This _better_ be what he hoped it was and not some bored banker's opium stash. He carefully cracked open the plastic seal to see the official seal of the Deutsche Reichsbank, instructions to the Deutsche Reichsbahn.

Footsteps approached. Jonathan shoved the package under some cleaning cloths, stomped the drain cover in place with his foot and grabbed the mop the moment a hand jiggled the door handle.

The door opened to reveal the bespectacled little man from the lift, now minus his clipboard. He stared at Jonathan in confusion for a moment.

"Guten morgen."

"Hallo." Jonathan replied. "Excuse me."

And he trundled out.

Lord, he had done it. He had _actually_ done it. Celebratory drinks were the order of the day! Well, at least after he washed this… _whatever_ off his hands.

"Wait."

Ah, shit. Jonathan turned slowly. The little man was glaring at him through round glasses that made him look like a bug. A big evil bug that could suck your intestines out through your nose.

Jonathan tensed, waiting for the fight or flight moment. Probably flight, he was good at that.

"Do you call this clean?" The officious little bloke pointed, and Jonathan almost had a heart-attack out of relief. "This is revolting! Do your job."

Jonathan bit his tongue to stop a snarky remark. _Do not speak back, do not speak back._

"Yes, sir."

And so Jonathan spent his time cleaning under the officious chap's beady eyes until the little man stared to look a little desperate and finally locked himself into a cubicle.

Jonathan threw down the scrub brush and got the hell out of there.

He scrubbed his hands viciously under the tap in the cleaner's cupboard before stripping off the coveralls, leaving him in trousers and white oxford. It was a good thing he was so skinny, because otherwise the multiple layers of clothes would have never worked. Jonathan shrugged back into the painter's smock, tucking the papers into an inside pocket before slipping out the door.

And very nearly ran headlong into the _real_ cleaner as he hurried to start his shift.

"Excuse me."

"No trouble."

Jonathan's heart was banging so loudly he expected other people could hear it. _Pull yourself together, you're not dead yet._

Though that was always an option.

He could hear voices ahead of him, and could see the light emitted by Manusson's flash bulbs as she stalled for time. Silently Jonathan slipped back into place behind Dragovitch like he'd never been gone and tapped the Russian on the shoulder.

The only reaction from the Russian was him clearing his throat, and Magnusson smoothly pulled the last flash bulb from her camera. "Well, that's my last bulb, Herr Hansberg."

"Yes, we really must be getting on to our next appointment." Percy said. "Thank you very much for your cooperation."

The junior minister's strained smile clearly said _like I had a choice._ As he walked past, the fellow's eyes ran over Jonathan and then drifted away, probably to find something more interesting to look at, like a pot plant. Sometimes there were advantages to not being built like a tank.

Andy Hallet was waiting in the car, a fag hanging from his fingers as everyone piled back in. "So, no bullet holes and no bared organs, I'm guessing no one needed to be killed, then, and little Tricky Dicky did the job."

"Someone being killed is still a possibility." Dragovitch said ominously.

"Tricky _who?_ " Jonathan demanded.

"Just drive." Magnusson said coolly.

"Yeah, yeah, just tell me which one of you smells like toilet? 'Cause I'm kind of disappointed I missed a party."

Jonathan kicked the back of the kid's seat and felt a little bit better.

The Cleaner Trick still worked. He couldn't believe it still worked.

"I can't believe that worked." Hallet said.

Sigrun Mangnusson had the papers smoothed over her knees, reading the smudged typeface.

"Is that _it_?" Percy asked impatiently, like he was disappointed that the papers didn't sing and dance and go down on him. "That _better_ be it."

Yes, because threatening it would make it all better.

The doctor ran her finger down the inventory. "There were twenty cars in the train, so it's either the Library or the Amber Room."

"So, either way, win-win." Jonathan said. She flashed him a quick smile.

"Good job."

"Aw, shucks, ma'am." Christ, he could still feel _it_ on his hands. He was going to spend about an hour in the bath, and if anyone disturbed him, he was going to drown them. "So, where are we off to?"

"Switzerland."


	6. Chapter 6

Ah, Switzerland. The last time Jonathan had been here he'd been in a chalet in the Alps with a model and a movie actress. Well, a model that _was_ a movie actress, not a model _and_ a movie actress like the time before that. There had been rose petals on the bed, and chilled champagne in an ice bucket and a selection of fine chocolates on the table. Whoever said money couldn't buy happiness had never stayed at a five-star fully-catered hotel.

Now here he was, 47 years old, and he was jammed Eton-style in a dormitory with four other fully-grown men, with all the grossness _that_ situation was bound to entail. Oh, glorious day.

But as much as Jonathan wasn't exactly hot on the situation, he didn't hold a candle to one Percival Eugene Forsyth-Golding III (honestly, Jonathan was _still_ having problems believing that somewhere out there parents voluntarily named their son that, _three times over_. Way to make sure that your kid would grow up with a Napoleon complex the size of the Sun), who was still arguing with the hotelier about the room allocations.

"But that's entirely ridiculous!" Percy was raging. "Five men in one room?"

Now, Jonathan had thrown his share of temper tantrums in his time, but _really._ Honestly, the man was one step away from resorting to the cry of the mediocre everywhere: _Don't you know who I am?_

He interrupted Golding's tirade. "Look, old chap, this isn't Ancient Rome, so I wouldn't worry too much, Perce."

"I like to think I have better options if I decide to have an orgy, anyway." Hallet said.

Jonathan mimed being shot. "Oh, Mr Hallet, through the heart!"

Golding threw them disgusted looks.

"This is our busy season." To his credit, the hotelier didn't waver, and Jonathan guessed that he was intimately acquainted with the Outraged Englishman Who Thinks He's All That. "We have two rooms, dormitory and single. Lady gets single, that is all."

"Yes, lady gets single, that is all." Doc Magnusson echoed from where she was sitting in the foyer with a cup of tea waiting for them to finish their game of _Guess Who Has The Biggest Penis_.

And seemingly to underline the fact that he was finished with them, the hotelier snapped the check-in book closed and pointedly turned to the next person waiting, a little old couple whose only complaint seemed to be not being able to reach the liquor on the top shelf. First world problems.

"Well, that's a kick in the bollocks." Golding muttered as the three of them walked back toward the others. Jonathan didn't even know why Andy Hallet had slunk over to join them in the first place, unless he was instinctively drawn to situations he could muck up even more. Bloody kids.

Jonathan clapped Percy on the shoulder. "Mate, it's not that big of a deal. Don't be a girl."

Magnusson raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Don't look at me like that. You're not a girl; you're more what I'd expect it would be like if they ever trained a Rottweiler to walk on their hind legs."

It took a moment before Jonathan realised he'd said that second bit out loud. It seemed that fate had dealt him a hand that said he was forever fated to make a balls-up of things.

She raised an eyebrow. "So I am a bitch, yes?"

Uh oh.

"Is there an answer here that _won't_ get me in trouble?"

"Not on your _life_." Dragovitch said.

Meanwhile Percy was still dwelling on the dilemma of having to share a room with four other non-titled working-class stiffs, before suddenly brightening like his stockbroker had told him that his bonds had matured. "No matter. I'm sure Sigrun won't mind me popping over for, say, a _insy-weensy_ nightcap."

Jonathan knew Percy Golding's idea of a nightcap. He'd probably put the hard word on her while he was there, if he hadn't already. Lord knew that he was already overly-familiar in that way that made one's skin crawl.

"God, are we _still_ on that?" Hallet complained.

"What?" Magnusson almost spat out her mouthful of tea. She turned to glare at Percy, somehow saying just with her eyes that if the fellow just _happened_ to wander into her room in the dead of night she would cut him with her nail scissors. "No."

"But I-"

"No."

Percy goggled at her, entitled prat to the core. "I am paying your bills!"

Jonathan, Kurt and Dragovitch winced.

Oops.

" _No_." Her eyes narrowed. "I am not a whore, Mr Golding."

Percy went pale. "I didn't – that was not what I was implying at _all –"_

"Paying a woman to sleep with her is kind of the definition of a whore." Jonathan said helpfully.

"Not helping." Percy hissed.

"Jesus _Christ_." Hallet said.

"Look, don't worry about it. We can pretend we're back in school." Jonathan said, flapping his hands. _Look over here! Look at the idiot! No killing anyone until I've been paid!_ "Even though it won't be the same without Nigel Southby. Ooh, I call top bunk!"

Percy scowled at him and stalked off. Jonathan made a show of dusting his hands off, pleased with himself, and looked at Magnusson.

"You okay?"

"Never better." She said dryly.

"Look, don't worry about that twat. He's always had terminal foot-in-mouth disease."

Magnusson flashed him a tired smile. "Carnahan, if I was bothered by every man's ingrained elitism and casual sexism I would never leave the house."

Hallet rubbed his nose and looked around uneasily. "Uh, is anyone else feeling really uncomfortable right now?"

"Who's Nigel Southby?" Kurt asked. "I believe I have heard that name before."

"You probably have. It's _Sir_ Nigel now, for services to the Crown for… something tedious and bottom-feeding, probably. Percy and Nigel were bunkmates; Perce was on the bottom because he won the coin toss, or lost, as it may be." Jonathan said, grinning at the memory. "Turned out old Nige was a bit of a chronic bed-wetter."

"Hey, I got a question." Hallet said, using grammar that would have given Jonathan's English master a heart attack. "You're an Old Etonian, right? Are the stories true?"

"Oh, stories?" Jonathan said in his _Please Elaborate_ voice. "However do you mean?"

Andy Hallet's face fell, not sure whether Jonathan was being serious or just taking the piss. "C'mon, you know. The _stories_ about all-male boarding schools."

Magnusson looked like she wished she could drown herself in her teacup.

" _You_ know." Now the kid's face was going red, and Jonathan found he was enjoying himself perhaps a _tad_ more than he should have. Junior was a talented bullshit artist, but Jonathan was a master.

"Oh, you mean all the satanic devil-worship and the rampant buggery? _Those_ stories." Jonathan said innocently. "Pah, now _that_ is stereotyping, young man. I was _personally_ never touched up by _any_ of the teachers."

"Aw, and with that willowy body and those big blue eyes? I don't believe it for a second."

* * *

After all the nonsense with the Dragon Emperor and Alex blazing a trail to show that he was, indeed, his parents' son by _raising the bloody dead_ , Jonathan was over snow. He was over ice, and he was over snow. Jonathan was arguably over a lot of things, and yet he kept finding himself in these situations. At least there were no yetis in the Swiss Alps.

That anyone knew of.

_Dear Lord._

His eyes crossed as he watched a snowflake on the end of his nose.

"I'm bored."

"You're also a grown man." Magnusson said, her tone saying _suck it up, princess._ "It won't be long."

"That's what you said half an hour ago!" He was not whining, he was _not._ And his internal monologue was _not whining either._ Jonathan blew out his cheeks. "My _arse_ - _cheeks_ have frozen together."

Dragovitch handed him the ever-present flask of vodka, greatcoat hanging open, top buttons undone and looking for all the world like it was springtime in Vienna. "Moscow antifreeze."

Jonathan winced, and then despite his better judgement took the flask and downed a mouthful before he could think it though, and coughed a good half of it back up. "Good God, is that jet fuel?"

Dragovitch took his own swig, muttering something along the lines of _scrawny English_ , and hey, the truth was the truth, there was no point getting all outraged about it _._

"Are you sure this fellow is actually going to show or should we just dig in for the night?"

"No one _made_ you come." Magnusson pointed out.

Yes, that was true, but his residual sense of valour was acting up again. One just did not simply allow attractive young blonde women to walk off into the snow to meet some dodgy old bloke who may or may not have been a collaborator, even though she may or may not have had her towering Russian dancing bear with her who was arguably the scary one of the bunch, particularly when he was sober.

Pfft, who did he think he was fooling? If anything actually happened, the best help Jonathan would be was if Dragovitch picked him up and actually threw him at someone.

The Russian straightened, nose to the air, reminding Jonathan of a Mastiff Pointer he'd had once. A proud-enough looking fellow, if a touch hairy. The dog was the same.

"There."

A fellow was approaching them through the snow, rugged up to the gills, his face dried and leathered that made him appear about a hundred years old, though the bloke had to be maybe Jonathan's age. This, in turn, made Jonathan wonder whether _he_ looked like a dried-up side of beef.

"Doctor Magnusson?" He looked at Jonathan.

Jonathan pointed at Magnusson. "Close, but no cigar."

A momentary flash of shock crossed the fellow's face and Jonathan briefly wondered whether it was going to be one of _those_ conversations, before the surprise was smoothed away and he nodded.

"Olaf Yurgensen."

"Mr Yurgensen-"

"Olaf, please-"

"Hello, Olaf." Magnusson pleasantly said, choosing to ignore the chap's previous slip. "You spoke to my associate over the telephone. You were the station master of the Zurich HB in 1945?"

"Still am, ma'am. Doctor." The fellow said, and seemed actually proud of the fact, the poor old fart. Maybe it was because Jonathan had travelled so extensively, but the idea of being shackled down in a single-job blue-collar career for the rest of your life and being _proud_ of it was his own sodding definition of hell.

"Excellent. Do you mind us asking a few questions?"

"Of course not, Doctor."

"Do you remember this shipment?" The doctor passed over the manifest.

The moment the chap looked at the document, it was like his face entirely closed down. "Are you from Nuremberg?"

Ah. Well, _that_ immediately told Jonathan that they were on the right track.

"The University of Oslo, Olaf, I assure you." It was surprising how calm and pleasant and just such a genuine old sort the doc appeared when she wanted something. But then, Jonathan supposed that was the natural order of things, really. Evy was the most charming creature you'd ever meet when you had something she wanted. "I and my team are working a retrieval. Governments are not involved and _no one_ is going to jail."

Speak for yourself. Jonathan was already thinking of killing someone so he had three square meals a day and only one roommate.

Olaf handed back the manifest. "Yes, I remember. The NSDAP authorised the trip, my papers said it was a weapons shipment."

Jonathan couldn't help himself. "And you didn't question that? A Nazi train sneaking fully-loaded through neutral territory while the NSDAP imploded didn't get your suspicions up just a tad?"

"You did not question the NSDAP, as much as you did not question your Downing Street." Olaf shot back. "I was a volunteer during the last war. We remained neutral through gross efficiency. Unless you drew arms against us, we had no issue with you."

Jonathan knew that. He _definitely_ knew that.

"It was backed up here for several days as a storm was coming over the Alps. After, the engineers resupplied and left, never saw any of them again."

Magnusson's eyes narrowed. "No one left the train? No one got on?"

"No." Olaf shook his head. "Unless it was hopped further down the track, I did not see anyone."

"Hold on." Jonathan said. "Look, I hate to say this, but are we really sure we're on the right track, here? This might not be the NSDAP train we're looking for."

"I do not know what you're looking for."

Jonathan opened his mouth to say something and Olaf held up a hand.

"I do not _want_ to know."

Hey, Jonathan himself was still wondering if it wasn't too late to just walk away and let what will be, will be. The fellow reached into his overcoat, and Dragovitch tensed just in case the little station master drew a pistol, like that was even possibly likely.

"Here. This fell from the train."

He allowed himself a moment of wondering whether it was a gold fragment, before dismissing the idea as a flight of fancy, especially when the chap handed Magnusson a folded scrap of paper.

The doctor opened the paper. The woman's expression didn't flicker for even a moment, but there was just _something_ in her stormy eyes that told Jonathan that she had got irrefutable evidence that they were on the right _track_ , so to speak.

Magnusson tucked the paper into her coat. "Thank you, Olaf."

It wasn't until they were safely back in the car and driving away from that odd rendezvous that she showed Jonathan the paper.

On it was a lithograph of an old seal, and Jonathan couldn't quite make out the Latin motto.

But he did make out the header in Norwegian.

_Den Norske Frimurerorden._

The Norwegian Order of Freemasons.

Hm.

* * *

The fellows were down in the bar, undoubtedly giving Percy Golding a hard time, which made Jonathan think that old Perce _really_ wanted whatever he was chasing. The fellow Jonathan knew years ago would have just fired everyone and started again, if, for some reason, he hadn't been absolutely sure that only Magnusson's team was capable of discovering the library.

He sipped his hot chocolate, tossing the puzzle box up and down with his other hand.

There was definitely something else going on here, and Jonathan contemplated calling his sister for an update when he noticed a shadow creep past the window.

Jonathan slipped the key into his jacket pocket and opened the outer door to the widow's walk that circled the lodge to see that Sigrun Magnusson was sitting on one of the benches, snow lightly peppering her fair hair and shoulders, making her look like she'd been lightly dusted with sugar, or dandruff. She looked up at the sound of the door opening, and then back down at her notes.

Jonathan flexed his hand before sinking down beside her. She might have not actually _invited_ him to join her, but she also hadn't explicitly told him to sod off, so...

"Cold night."

"Do you need elaboration on the situation?"

Hm. Perhaps he really _wasn't_ going to be able to charm this one. Perchance it was time Jonathan happened to review some life choices.

He glanced at the papers she was holding. "Figured out where we're off to next?"

"Yes." She said. "I would enjoy our… scrumptious appointments at the moment, as Andy is in the process of procuring supplies and transportation."

Oh. He _definitely_ didn't like the sound of that.

Jonathan's nose wrinkled. "Are we going… _camping_?"

He said it with the air of someone going to his doom. Magnusson looked at him, and her grey eyes were alive with a somewhat morbid amusement. "Of a sort."

Great. Jonathan had been turned off camping the moment he was four and woke up to find that he'd shared his sleeping bag with an iguana. And after school, the trenches, Hamunaptra… it had just proven to be a downward spiral.

Magnusson ran her finger down the manifest. "As the Russians approached Berlin, the BR52 was despatched for Zurich HB, and then on to Poland, via Austria and the Czech Republic."

"Poland?" Now that was interesting. And ludicrous. Poland was already liberated by then. "Why on _earth_ -? That seems a rather long and unnecessary round trip, what."

"I don't pretend I knew the way their minds work, but it would not have immediately raised suspicion, a freight train coming in from Switzerland instead of from Germany." She said dryly. Magnusson looked down, and it took Jonathan a moment to realise that she was looking at _him_. "What's wrong with your hand?"

He froze, and slowly unclenched his left fist that had automatically flexed closed. Damn it all, normally he was at least _aware_ of his tics enough to control them in front of other people.

"Ah, dear girl, nothing to worry about, I assure you. I can still fulfil my role on this little endeavour, whatever it might be."

And nothing made clearer the differences between Magnusson and a nice English girl right then, as she immediately reached out and took his hand firmly in hers, examining the appendage with all the concentration of, well, an archaeologist.

"Er, normally when a gal gets grabby, this is not really the situation."

She ignored him, studiously looking for spots and defects like he was a dodgy artefact that some shady mook was trying to flog in the market square, and Jonathan could honestly say he hadn't been so uncomfortable in a long time.

"What is this?"

There was an old silvery scar in the centre of his palm, a shaky crescent moon that almost stretched from one side of his hand to the other. Magnusson thankfully allowed him to pull his hand back to his chest, and Jonathan tugged his sleeve down as far as it would go. Now that wasn't suspicious _at all._ Have you forgotten the meaning of tact, old boy?

"Oh, that? Old war wound, nothing to write home about."

Magnusson's look said _oh, bullocks._

Bloody hell, his charm just wasn't malfunctioning, it was nonexistent. Normally he'd just talk and laugh and wave his hands around, and all would be forgotten, he, the master of misdirection. Sometimes it helped to have people think he was as shallow as a bird bath; Jonathan had found it was an effective way to avoid being burdened with other people's emotional baggage when he had enough of his own to deal with.

Jonathan rubbed his hand awkwardly. Loathe as he was to admit it, if it _had_ been a genuine war wound, inflicted in the trenches in the service of his country and his King and whatnot, he'd probably _still_ be dining out on it. After all, the only real thing he had over Rick was that O'Connell's battalion only reached the Front about half an hour before peace was declared.

"You've done your homework about me, so I'm assuming you've heard of Hamunaptra?" He screwed up his face, deciding to hedge his bets. "Maybe not. In 1926 you would have been about ten and still learning about the pharaohs in school, I expect."

"I was _fourteen_ , sir, and further along in my education than you were at that age, I suspect."

That made him laugh. "I have absolutely no doubt." And then he winced. Eleven years. _Eleven_ bloody _years._ _You, Jonathan Carnahan, are a dirty, disgusting old man._

"I remember begging my father to take me when the digs started." Magnusson said. "I had such a romanticised idea of archaeology, navigating by the stars, using your – what you say – _gut feeling_ to unearth civilisations that had been lost for thousands of years, becoming the next big name in what amounted to tomb robbing."

"What shattered the illusion? The first time you had to go behind a bush? That was it for me." She smiled. "No, ah, like the thundering amateur I am whose magpie mind is dazzled by anything shiny, I picked up something I shouldn't have." He touched the crescent scar on his hand. "Do you know the… the, they're called _dermestidae,_ I think?"

"Flesh eating beetles?" She frowned.

"Mmm-hmm. Nasty little bastards. My sister swears blind they were scarabs."

For the first time the doctor looked genuinely bewildered. "Scarab beetles don't eat flesh."

"Perhaps not _today's_ scarabs."Jonathan gave a dark laugh. "Little blighter came in _here_ , ate his way up _here_ -" he ran his finger up a ridge of scar tissue on his arm _under_ his skin. When Jonathan had managed to drag himself to a doctor, admittedly quite a bit of time after he'd already found a pub, the crusty old chap had bound the arm from wrist to shoulder, so his skin could _reattach to his muscle._ His bloody sister thought he was being a drama queen and Rick thought he must have been having a laugh, the twat. "And O'Connell cut him out _here_." He pointed at his shoulder. "But hey, made it, and on the bright side I've got one hell of a story to tell."

He couldn't help the shudder. After all this time if he thought too hard he could still feel the spindly little legs skittering under his skin, and had to swallow back a wave of sudden bile.

"But you do not tell it." Magnusson said gently. "Are you all right, Jonathan?"

That one question froze the smile on his face, and Jonathan realised something. He couldn't remember anyone asking him that _,_ not his sister, not his mates, the ones that were left. Not when he came back from the Great War, not when he'd had a _hole eaten through him_ , not ever. He was Jonathan, the eternal fool, who had no deeper thoughts beyond skirt-chasing and where his next drink was coming from.

Jonathan pulled in a deep breath.

"No." He said. "I'm not all right."

He used to be such a nice polite little boy, listened to his elders, did what he was asked, and never spoke back. Two world wars and a roll-call of the dead had chipped away at that nice polite little boy until there was only a mocking, hollow-eyed echo left behind.

Magnusson nodded, her eyes dark and sad with her own pain. "I'm not all right either."

The two sat there in a silence broken by only Jonathan's sniffs. He swallowed hard so he wouldn't start bawling, because wouldn't _that_ project 'competent' and 'professional', all snotty and teary and blubbering all over the person that amounted to his boss. He stared hard at the manifest, willing the moisture to somehow get sucked back into his eyes. He had an _image_ to maintain, damn it.

Somewhat hesitantly, Sigrun Magnusson rested her hand on top of his, and Jonathan found that small gesture more comforting than he should have.

"I have an idea." He said finally into the darkness.

Magnusson's look invited him to elaborate.

"There were collaborators and spies in practically every government."

"What?" The doctor looked dumbfounded at his sudden change in subject, blinking in surprise.

"Poland! The manifest!" He took it from Sigrun's unresponsive hands, shaking it at her. The way her nose wrinkled said if he kept doing it, she was going to snatch it back and smack him with it. "No, wait, that makes _perfect_ sense! Don't look at me like that, listen. No one would look to the territories that had _already_ been liberated, would they? At least not _straight away._ "

It took the woman only a moment to catch up to his mental gymnastics. "And it would give whoever was waiting to receive them enough time to salt away the contents," Magnusson finished his thought. "Ha! You do have your moments, Doctor Carnahan."

"That's me, Jonathan Carnahan: He Has His Moments." Jonathan suspected that would be on his tombstone. He looked down at the manifest. The name of the receiver on the order was _Paradygmat._

"I've got a phone call to make."

* * *

BRRRING!

_"_ _Hello?"_

"Evy?"

_"_ _Jonathan? Thank goodness, I've been worried sick-"_

"Yes, I'm sure you have, old girl, you always do, but I need you to do something for me."

_"_ _What a surprise. Jonathan, I have-"_

"Listen, Evy, I need you to find out what or who an outfit called Paradygmat is a front for. It's Polish. You're still pals with the chaps in suits at Vauxhall Cross, yes? I need to know they'll let you past the foyer."

_"_ _Of course, but I need to tell-"_

"Good, tell old Joe on the door that I sent you, and that he still owes me for Palestine."

_"_ _Jonathan, stop-"_

"Oh, I'm being paged, I have to go. Love you, old mum, stay out of trouble."

 _"_ _Jonathan Carnahan, don't you_ dare _hang up on-"_

Click.


	7. Chapter 7

After the war Jonathan Carnahan came back home only to have to enter another battle with a distant uncle to gain control of the Carnahan estate and get back guardianship of his sister. It was all a great mess, started by someone he'd made the mistake of thinking he could trust, and who was going to do his damned best to drag the whole rotten thing out as long as humanly possible. Jonathan had worked hard, harder than arguably ever had, to make sure that the two of them had what amounted to a home, and his little sister had the quality of life she was entitled to.

He suspected that Evy had edited those fraught times from her memory, and Jonathan could hardly blame her. She was a fifteen year old girl, after all, and her head was all wrapped up in the romantic notion of following in Mother and Father's footsteps as well as all the other things that fascinated a fifteen year old girl that Jonathan had no concept of and _wanted_ no concept of.

And then, when he was about twenty-one and had finally, finally gotten Evelyn safely ensconced away in university when they acquiesced to allow women to matriculate, the stupid sexist twats, when something in his mind just… snapped.

He remembered walking out of the pub with the clothes on his back, just suddenly feeling the overwhelming need to _get away_ , and found himself buying the first steamer ticket out of England, headed anywhere, and Jonathan had spent the next six months or so riding the rails throughout Europe, honing the subtle art of bullshitting, nurturing a budding love of booze, and found that those quick, busy hands that had made him such an adept field surgeon made light work of separating a fool from his money. And while the medic in him diagnosed himself as finally suffering the effects of shellshock, like so many other poor bastards, Jonathan found he just… didn't care.

In all honesty, it wasn't one of his proudest moments, and in his long and chequered life _that_ was truly saying something, and to this day Jonathan didn't _entirely_ remember _why_ he did it in the first place. Like more or less everything he had done from the moment he was a tyke and Jonathan had pulled Father's whip down off the top shelf looking for biscuits and cut his bottom lip open, it could be summed up with the rather simple It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, a life philosophy that unfortunately his nephew seemed determined to follow.

He made his way back eventually, to his sister's relief and unending scolding, and ultimately didn't seem worse for wear in the long run despite his temporary foray into mental instability.

But still, this current situation wasn't exactly bringing up agreeable memories.

Jonathan couldn't believe he was riding a cattle car across Austria. Again! What the hell was _wrong_ with him?

"Would you sit _down_? You're giving me motion-sickness."

Andy Hallet was watching Jonathan stride up and down the car from his perch on his swag.

"No, that is not motion sickness, that's Constance and Joan." He nodded toward the two shaggy goats who were sharing the car with them, who Jonathan was perfectly happy to blame in case of any sudden unexplained smells. "I just… memories."

"Yes." Kurt said, his face bleak, and Jonathan was abruptly reminded that the fellow was probably shipped across Prussia to a concentration camp in similar luxury accommodations, so stop whining, you _twat_.

"This is absurd." Oh, yes, the voice of the Everyman. Percy Golding was sitting atop a stack of scratchy horse blankets like he was in the Princess & The Pea, perched very high and very still as if to keep _real life_ from splashing on his trousers. Wait, no, admittedly _that_ over there wasn't real life. "Why are we doing this?" He complained. "We have a _plane_ , which _I_ resolutely keep fuelled up and fully-equipped. We should be utilising it. Where even _is_ that wastrel, Vasily?"

Ooh-er. "Technically, it's your _mum_ that's keeping it all tickety-boo." Jonathan said. "I hope you're at least going to send her flowers, or maybe a new girdle."

Percy glared.

"Vasily will meet us in Poland with the aeroplane." Sigrun said. "I have sent him on."

"But _why_?"

She just looked at him like she was a frazzled old school marm at the end of her rope and he was the dimwit up the back of the class with the pea shooter that was one spit ball away from being eviscerated with a protractor.

"Because you can't fold a Stuka?" Kurt offered, eyebrow tilted in a way that reminded Jonathan of Ardeth Bay.

"The Austrian fellows were always a little nervous about private planes in their airspace." Jonathan observed.

"After the annexation, wouldn't _you_?" Hallet sniffed.

"The Russian markings won't exactly radiate _calm_ , either. More _surrender before we eat your dog."_

"As there are no records of such a train being seized by any authorities, I strongly suspect that the cars were derailed before meeting their final destination." Sigrun said, ignoring the insanity around her. Jonathan had to wonder whether life in the University of Oslo was as eventful, because she seemed to have had plenty of practise ignoring idiots. "Derailed and housed somewhere along the line."

"So, hence, we follow the line." Jonathan finished. "And no one _made_ you come. Dragovitch even _asked_ if you wanted to hotfoot it with him and wait over there at the finishing line."

"The trade-off would be a month in Poland with _Vasily Dragovitch_." Hallet said with a gleam to his eye. "Blindfold that man and parachute him into any random country and I'll _guarantee_ that within the hour, pal would have found a rotgut pub and a brothel. I've seen it, it's like some kind of heat-seeking missile, kind of majestic in its depravity."

"You are all disgusting." Percy complained. "Would it be too much to ask for some highbrow conversation now and then?"

Jonathan arched an eyebrow, but it was Sigrun that voiced what he was thinking.

"You _are_ aware of exactly who is working for you, yes?"

"Bah, forget you. So true, Perce, it's about time we discussed our bonds and the latest talkies after lemonade and watercress sandwiches." Jonathan said cheerily.

Andy Hallet snorted.

Percy glared at Jonathan like he _itched_ to just unload and tell them all _exactly_ where they could go. Instead he pulled his legs up and sat straighter on his blanket throne. "Sociopaths and psychopaths," he muttered under his breath, in that annoying way that was _meant_ to carry and offend.

"I call sociopath. I'm good at having my resentment bubbling over quietly." Hallet said. "You can be the psychopath."

"And here you are assuming I'm not already," Jonathan said.

And seemingly underlining the ridiculousness of the whole stupid situation, Constance the goat farted.

* * *

Andy Hallet snored away like an old Lancaster bomber, while Percy Golding was making little whimpering noises and occasionally twitching like a little dog dreaming about chasing rabbits. Sigrun Magnusson had pulled her coat up over her head, and Jonathan could just make out the end of her yellow plat if he squinted hard enough.

Jonathan stopped squinting because it was starting to make him feel like an old lecher.

Kurt was bundled up in one of the corners, asleep but his eyes half-lidded in that vaguely disturbing way that one learned to do when one expected one's arse blown up spectacularly at any moment. Jonathan expected the moment he made a too-quick movement in the fellow's vicinity he'd wind up with a bayonet at his throat.

He wasn't going to do _that_ again.

Jonathan sat in the gap afforded by the open car door, dangling his legs outside. Particles of ice stung his face as the world spun by. It was sort of beautiful, in a melancholy sort of way. Ha. He needed booze. He was starting to get introspective again.

And no one wanted that.

There was a rustle behind him and Jonathan looked up to see Kurt settle in the doorway beside him.

"Mornin'."

"Morning."

"Hope the thoughts echoing around in my empty head didn't wake you up."

Steiner gave a gravelly laugh.

"Mine wouldn't be any quieter than yours, believe me."

They sat in silence for a moment, two old soldiers still fighting their ghosts. Jonathan looked down at his hands, at the clusters of strange little scars that he'd managed to accumulate over a lifetime. He used to have beautiful hands once, surgeon's hands.

"I used to be a doctor, you know." Jonathan said.

Another pause as the German scratched at his bristly chin.

"Yes, well, I used to be a baker." He confessed somewhat sheepishly.

Jonathan forced back the urge to laugh as the word sank into his mind. "No! You said your folks had a title?"

"I was the family disappointment. Even had a storefront in Strasberg. We did bread, and pastries, and even wedding cakes per order." Kurt said wistfully. "I wish…"

Yes, Jonathan knew exactly what he wished.

"How the hell did we wind up here?" Jonathan complained.

"Poor choices, and statesmen of questionable sanity." Kurt said.

Well, that about summed it up perfectly. Jonathan chuckled.

And then he frowned.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

There were lights on the track in front of them, blinking and twinkling prettily, belying what Jonathan felt was a decidedly more sinister intent. "We're not supposed to be anywhere near the station until late tomorrow."

"No." Kurt Steiner's face was like stone as he got to his feet. "Watch them."

Jonathan kept his eyes on the approaching lights as the German woke the others. Andy and Percy grumbled but an instant later, Sigrun was by Jonathan's shoulder, surprisingly as bright as a button, and he had to remind himself that she had probably spent her time dodging the secret police during Norway's occupation.

"What is it?"

"No idea. They're on the track, whoever they are."

"The angry villagers?" Hallet asked. "See any pitchforks?"

"I don't see that, unless someone told them we were coming." Jonathan said. "And _why-_?"

There was a bang that was almost lost in the rushing wind, and the train suddenly rocketed forward like the engineer had opened the throttle. Jonathan would have tumbled out the door and splattered on the rocks below if Magnusson hadn't seized him hard around the waist, wrenching him back. "Oh, good _Lord_." He gasped.

"What the hell is that idiot engineer doing?!" Andy demanded.

The next second, the night exploded with flares.

" _Shit_!"

"What the _hell_ -?"

Jonathan stared, an uneasy thrill going up his spine. In all honesty, it reminded him of anti-aircraft fire over El Alamein.

"God, there's a _blockade_ on the track." He whispered.

What the _hell_ was a _blockade_ doing on the track?

Kurt shrugged out of his jacket before shouldering open the compartment door that led to the next car. "I'm going to check it out."

"Are you completely insane?" Jonathan bellowed, dragging himself over against the wind. "You're going to kill yourself!"

The door snapped open, buffering them with chunks of ice and coal dust. Kurt turned to Jonathan, eyebrows raised.

Jonathan just made a sweeping gesture. "After you."

He stared uselessly as the German clambered along the outside of the car until Jonathan could no longer see him, and then he snapped to attention. _Someone_ had to be the grown-up since the actual adult had temporarily vacated the situation. "All right, grab your stuff!" He stumbled back across the car and strapped his own bag to his back. "We might have to bug out."

"What?" Percy bleated, golden hair ruffled and peaky-looking, standing there like a lump while Hallet immediately leapt into action wadding clothes into bags and Sigrun stuffed papers down the front of her coat, zipping up tightly. "Are you suggesting we jump out a _train_?"

"It's either that or die horribly whenever _they_ get their hands on us!" Jonathan shouted back. "Grab everything!"

Another lurch, and suddenly the train was slowing again, but still too fast to avoid the blockade. There was a thump at the front of the car, and he looked up to see Kurt on all fours, having dived back into the car, coated in snow and coal dust.

"Engineer's dead." He gritted out. "Sniper. I closed the throttle."

Oh, Lord.

"It's not going to make much of a difference at this speed." Jonathan said. "Time to go!"

"But there's a sniper out there!" Percy howled.

"Then duck and roll!" With more than a little effort, Jonathan dragged open the rolling door. Snow and ice flashed past them. "Bridge coming up!"

"They're going to blow the bridge." Sigrun whispered.

"Go!" Kurt bellowed.

"But I don't _want_ to jump out a train!" Percy wailed.

"Oh, Christ!" Hallet shouted. The man looked outside, looked back at the others, pulled the hood of his jacket down over his eyes and then barrelled out the door, disappearing into the white, his final cry trailing behind him. " _Banzai_!"

Sigrun looked at them. "Jonathan-"

"Go!" Jonathan shouted. "We'll catch up!"

And she nodded briskly before grabbing the door bar, leaning out as far as she could reach and letting go, falling away from the locomotive.

She too disappeared.

"Come _on_!" Jonathan extended an arm.

Percy's face was as white as chalk, and he was backing away from the roller door. "No, I can't- I _won't_ -"

"Bridge is _coming_!" Kurt shouted.

"Ah, _fuck_!" Jonathan shouted, before seizing Percy under the arm and dragging the struggling man forward. Kurt joined him at the other side, wrenching Golding forward. "On three!"

"Three!" Kurt bellowed.

And then the three of them were tumbling out the door, shouts snatched away by the wind.

* * *

Jonathan lost both Kurt and Percy as he fell, ice crystals rendering him blind. At the last moment he managed to tuck his head as his shoulder caught the icy ground hard, sending him rolling and tumbling uncontrollably down the incline toward the river.

The river!

_Oh,_ bugger _me!_

He reached out his hands, scrabbling wildly, rocks and ice slicing his hands to ribbons.

_"_ _Shit!"_

Damn it, he needed to control his decent! With a wrench he rolled onto his back. Now, either this was going to work or he was going to pitch himself face-first into the Rhine.

Jonathan dug his heels into the snow, and the next moment he was hurled upright, arms pin-wheeling. As he started wheeling forward once more, he launched himself toward a small strand of trees. His screwed his eyes shut as bark ripped into Jonathan's fingers and there was an ominous crack.

The tree held. He stopped.

"Thank God. Oh, thank _God_ ,"

Jonathan's heart was pounding out of his chest. He peeked out through his lashes. Only a few more feet and he would have smashed into the icy Rhine.

He allowed himself one more brief moment to stand there, shivering like a little dog in the cold, before Jonathan realised that he was leaving bloody handprints on the tree. Hell, if those little buggers on the bridge had dogs, they'd be able to track him in no time! Bloody brilliant!

Jonathan waded up the incline, boots sinking deep in the snow. Honestly, between that and the blood, he may as well have just put up a sign with an arrow saying _He's Gone This Way._

_BOOM!_ And just as he managed to find his feet, the dark icy landscape lit up with a fireball, sending him down face-first into the slush once more. _I_ hate _bloody snow!_

But on the bright side, at least it would take some time for them to ascertain that they weren't on the train.

He trudged along parallel to the track, scanning the field of white for any marks that may have been left by the others. Blast it all, with the speed they had been travelling, they could have been several hundred meters away!

_"…_ _when the saints come marching in-"_

Or maybe not.

_"_ _I want to be in their number…"_

He never thought he'd be this thankful to ever see Percy Golding. The little lordling was singing to himself, a stupid smile on his face and blood on his brow. He saw Jonathan and beamed. "Ah, Jonny, there you are!"

"Keep your voice down," Jonathan hissed, kneeling down, taking hold of Percy's head and peering in his eyes. Naturally enough, he had a concussion. The sodding twit had probably gone out the door head first, never mind duck and cover.

There was a rustle behind them, and Jonathan snapped around. He untensed when he saw Kurt staggering out toward them.

"There you are."

"Here I am. That bloody station master sold us out!"

"Possibly." Kurt did not look surprised in the slightest.

_"…_ _when the saints come marching in-"_

Steiner nodded at Golding. "What happened to Martha Tilton there?"

"Concussed. Hit his head coming down. If you want to hit him up for a pay rise, this is probably the best time for it." Jonathan looked over Kurt. "You're looking a bit peaky. You good?"

"I am fine, Carnahan."

"Oh, _bull_. Tell me, I'm a doctor."

"I could hit you for that." The German said. "I – er – rolled my ankle. It's not important."

_Rolled_ his _ankle_? No wonder he wasn't going to say anything. O'Connell would probably rather die than admit it if he sprained his ankle during one of his idiotic stunts.

"It needs to be strapped."

"It's nothing important. I'm fine."

"Kurt-"

"I'm _fine_."

"You're as bad as the bloody kids on the bloody front." Jonathan hissed, hauling Percy to his feet, an arm around his shoulder as the man continued to hum battle anthems. "Patriotic little fools pretending it doesn't bloody hurt so they can get back to the _bloody_ fighting and bag a _bloody Hun_ so they can big-note themselves _if_ they come back home not in a _bloody body bag_! Let me tell you that an untreated sprained ankle can lead to a deteriorating of the ligaments and chronic ankle weakness. Which means that you could be walking along and then, splat! The whole joint's done for!"

Kurt opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and joined Jonathan in dragging Percy away.

"I'll strap it when we're at a safe place." Jonathan said stiffly, leaving no room for compromise.

"Thanks, doc." Kurt said somewhat sheepishly.

Jonathan sighed. "Just so you know, normally I'm not this tense."

"I'll take your word for it."

"I got something to tell you." That was when a dazed Percy looked up at Jonathan, still happily oblivious. "You know I've always absolutely hated you, Jonny?"

"The feeling is entirely mutual, old chap." Jonathan growled. "Believe me."

Honestly, how Jonathan kept getting into these situations, he would never know. One moment he was just going along with a pretty lady, all piss and vinegar and minding his own business, and then _bam_ , he had an Egyptian asp at his throat. Or a bug in his arm. Or he was playing at fisticuffs with the spirit of an ancient reincarnated princess.

He _really_ hated snow.

As Kurt's ankle worsened, Jonathan found himself taking more and more of Percy's weight, grimacing under the strain. "I hope you know that if his leg goes, it's going to be a toss-up on who I leave behind." He said to Golding, who was vacantly humming _Ald Lang Syne._ "And you're easier to toss up."

Kurt's laugh was somewhat breathless. "I am glad that you have such high regard for me."

"Don't get too cocky. Hallet has the food and you have more meat on your bones if cannibalism becomes a viable option." Jonathan said. "Why would someone be this desperate to get the train?" He stopped. "Why would someone be so desperate to stop _us_ from getting to the train?"

"People will do anything for money."

Jonathan shook his head. "There's something else here, I can feel it."

"You are psychic now?"

"I'll have you know that I'm from a long line of psychics and carnival folk."

"And conmen, I suspect."

"I thought I just said that."

They trudged along in silence.

"Why does Golding need Magnusson for this dig?" Jonathan asked, completely ignoring the delirious man under his arm and asking Steiner.

"What makes you think he needs Magnus?"

"I already told you. I'm psychic. And I have eyes."

Kurt chuckled. "You saw the page, yes? _Den Norske Frimurerorden_?"

"The Norwegian Order of Freemasons."

He nodded. "Magnus's husband belonged to the Freemasons."

Jonathan swallowed the sudden bitter taste in his mouth. At her age, of course she was married! It wasn't like she had been waiting her whole life for a skinny middle-aged Englishman to sweep her off her feet! _Get a_ grip, _you fool!_ "Oh?" he tried for feigned disinterest, but by Kurt's look, he wasn't buying it.

"He was there when the NSDAP looted their library, endeavouring to save as much of his country's culture as he could." He continued.

Jonathan closed his eyes briefly. By that one sentence, he could tell where this tale was going. "What happened?"

Kurt shook his head. "Himmler plundered their treasures and Thor Sarsgard was never seen again."

And Sigrun Magnusson was a widow. It was a tale told the world over. Jonathan sighed.

"And offered the opportunity, she wouldn't stop until she found the library."

Kurt stopped. "Halt."

Jonathan wasn't about to ignore a command like that, in that accent, and he juggled Percy's weight a little more evenly across his shoulders. Steiner limped forward so he accordingly shielded Jonathan and Golding, gun appearing from beneath his coat, like he would make much difference considering that one well-placed leg-shot would send him to his knees in an instant.

"Who goes there?"

"Really? Are we in a _Robin Hood_ novel?" Jonathan hissed.

"What ho! Tis Sir Galahad and the Lady Guinevere, milord!" Andy Hallet called back across the snow, and Jonathan felt himself wilt with relief. "Hast thou our other erstwhile companions?"

Little blighter! Jonathan could have _kissed_ him.

"Well met, Lady Guinevere!" He called back, and a moment later the tension bled out of them in relieved laughter.

* * *

"Will someone shut that idiot up before he completely mangles the complete back-catalogue of Marlene Dietrich?"

"I don't know, I always wanted to know what _Falling in Love Again_ would sound like in a _castrati_ key."

"I have a question. Are we walking to Poland?"

"No, your Majesty. We're taking the bus."

"Oh, good. The _bus_."

 

   
---


	8. Chapter 8

Jonathan sat on the back seat of the bus crumpled and dirty and feeling like a sack of dirty laundry. Someone plonked down onto the empty bench seat beside him and he almost jumped out of his skin before he realised that Andy Hallet was peering curiously at him with dark, laughing eyes, his young face creased into suspicious lines. _Human resources,_ Sigrun had said. Ha, well, the chap was certainly old enough and sneaky enough to have been in Intelligence during the last war, and had about the same disregard for the rules.

As the kid settled into the seat, all up and down the coach, people were staring at him, at his sharp Asian features, like they expected him to just dash out a samurai sword and lop off someone's head. Jonathan almost snorted at the ridiculousness. Like he could have smuggled in a sword in _those_ trousers.

"Wired, old man?"

Jonathan's eyes narrowed. While once he would have bit back at the remark, his grey hair and wobbly middle were testament to the fact that strictly speaking he was old enough to be the kid's dad.

"What do you want?"

"Can't I stop over and say hello?" He said with a faux-wounded expression, hand fluttering over his heart like he had been mortally wounded. Good Lord, Jonathan could have been speaking to _himself_ twenty years ago. He watched Hallet out of the corner of his eye, and realised the kid was casually scrutinising him with the same intensity.

"Outta curiosity, what's your deal?" Hallet asked curiously.

The question was flat and forthright, and Jonathan blinked at him.

"I must say, I appreciate your candour instead of beating around the bush."

"I'm cute like that." The kid shot back. "What's your deal here, grandpa?"

Ouch. Now _that_ hurt. Jonathan countered with a question of his own.

"Are you really from Kent?"

"I'm from a lot of places." All right, those dark eyes were starting to get particularly unnerving. "An' I'm suspecting that _you're_ from a lot of places, too."

"Ha! You've got the wrong end of the stick there, mate. I just talk."

"And talk. And talk. Until after a while no one listens." He arched an eyebrow, too bloody sure of his own rightness for his own good, in a way that made Jonathan want to smack the ego out of the little bugger. Oh, to be twenty five and completely assured of your own invulnerability once more.

"I'm not quite sure I get your meaning."

"Oh, _bullocks_." The quintessential English idiom didn't sound quite right in that loud American accent.

Jonathan's eyes narrowed. "Now, with a refined interrogation technique like yours, no wonder you're _here_ instead of being with whatever acronym recruited you in the first place."

The kid grinned brightly, proud of himself for recognising a similar blackened soul. "Maybe, darling, but I still got you to confirm that you saw action with the buggers in suits in the last war."

Blast. He really did, didn't he? The smug little bastard.

Hallet leaned forward, eyes aglow, and Jonathan recalled wistfully that he knew once what it was like to feel that everything was a great adventure. "So? MI5? MI6?" His eyes narrowed. "SAS?"

At that, Jonathan gave a bark of laughter. "Can you see _these_ arms in the Special Air Service?"

Andy grinned.

"I'll level with you, my lad, if you level with me." It looked like that'd be the only way to get the little blighter to bugger off. Jonathan straightened on the uncomfortable bench seat at much as he could.

The kid looked triumphant. "Deal."

"Who is Percy working for?"

Junior's eyes narrowed. "What d'you mean?"

"Oh, don't give me that. I've known that man for a long time, and Percy only has an original idea when someone else hits him over the head with it."

Andy was sizing him up, dragging it out, and Jonathan fought the temptation to snap his fingers and chivvy him along like a misbehaving puppy.

Finally the kid shrugged. "Guy said he was working on contract for this secret organisation."

Uh huh.

"When you _happened_ to get him off his face?"

"I can't help it if the man can't hold his liquor." The kid said innocently. Jonathan grimaced. There was no skill or finesse required in getting the mark sloshed enough to spill his guts, without, you know, _actually_ spewing his guts. It was why he had spent decades inuring himself against the possibility. Or at least that's what he told himself.

"Did he say a name?"

"Something Polish." The kid's lips pursed. "By the sounds of it, he was going to pull a fast one on them, too."

Like _that_ was a surprise.

Jonathan stood. "I have to go."

"You coulda mentioned that before we left the last stop!" Andy looked startled. "Hey, Carnahan!"

"What?"

"MI9?"

Jonathan's smile was sharp. "Women's Institute. I was a Land Girl."

He tapped Hallet on the head before walking down the rollicking aisle.

"Never tip your hand first, my lad."

He took hold of Sigrun's shoulder to get her attention, and of _course_ that was when their idiot kamikaze coach driver took a corner too sharply and almost catapulted him into her lap.

"Oh, _bloody_ hell!"

"And good morning to you, too." She looked up at him through half-lidded eyes.

"I need to talk to you. In private."

"We are on a bus." Her voice was slow, and Jonathan knew her accent was thicker in the mornings. He'd noticed the past few weeks that sometimes it took her a little while to get her head oriented to English, and they'd had whole arguments in Norwegian about the benefits of coffee versus a good Earl Grey before Magnusson was fully cognizant. Damn it all, this was probably the longest relationship he'd had with a woman in years. "How do you presume we make that happen?"

He looked around him, at the chattering old ladies, hyperactive children, and world-weary travellers, sweeping his hand out in a grand showman's gesture. "Join me in the john?"

She just arched an eyebrow.

"I remember the days you used to be smoother than that!" Percy hooted. "Oh, how the mighty have fallen!"

"In your ear!" Jonathan snapped, turning back to Sigrun. "This is important. _Please._ "

Sigrun closed her eyes briefly before acquiescing to giving him her hand, and Jonathan helped her get to her feet, the bus beneath them rocking like it was a small boat on choppy water. Honestly, it was like the man was _trying_ to hit every pothole and shell crater in the road. It'd help if old mate put _both_ hands on the wheel, but someone would have to pry his hip flask away first.

The two made their way to the back of the coach, when a sudden braking almost sent the two of them sprawling the length of the bus.

Andy laughed.

Jonathan's teeth set on edge. "I lived in a hole in the ground for two years yet I'm going to die in a bus crash because some _overgrown_ _ape_ was _interrupted_ in the middle of evolution!"

People started murmuring in concern as the coach came to a complete stop, and Jonathan and Sigrun exchanged a look. The driver sprang up from his seat, probably the most animated he'd ever been since Creation, and immediately started cursing at the oily-looking gentleman who stepped smoothly onto the coach. The fellow was in a smart dark suit and hat, and with sunken cheeks and sanguine face, he looked like a tax collector. Or an undertaker.

Or a vampire.

And Jonathan immediately got a bad feeling.

The chap said something calmly to the driver, and the driver barked something back, refusing, for now, to let the bloke through, forcing him backwards off the bus with his considerable girth.

"I'm thinking it's time to get off the bus." Jonathan said.

"I'm thinking you're right." Sigrun agreed. She knocked Kurt on the shoulder and threw out a couple of finger flicks that Jonathan recognised as military hand signals, and the German immediately perked up. "Back door. Go quick, go quiet."

Idly, Percy chipped in his two cents. "It's probably just some chap from the government hunting commies or gooks."

Hallet frowned furiously. " _Excuse_ me?"

Percy actually looked surprised for a moment, before seemingly remembering that the kid was of Japanese descent. "I don't mean _you_." He started. "I mean, you're essentially an Englishman, after all-"

"And as we all know, _that's_ what important." Now, Jonathan Carnahan liked to think that he was a patient man, but Golding's constant chronic complaining and rampant elitism was really starting to get under his skin. He remembered all the times in school he had been taunted as a _halfblood_ and _halfie_ , Percy Golding the main instigator. "You get your backside up out of that seat before I _punt_ you out."

At that, the bloke got up off the bench, jerking his fancy jacket back into place, putting his face right into Jonathan's. "Do you think you can take me?"

Lord, it really _was_ like they were back in school.

"We don't have _time_ for this." Sigrun hissed.

Jonathan looked Percy up and down. Admittedly the fellow was taller and wider than Jonathan, but the bulk was of a sedentary English lord that had never had to want for anything in his life. Jonathan may have not been an outright brawler like Rick O'Connell, but he was small and quick and not possessed of those idiot scruples known as a 'good, clean, honest fight'.

There was a feral edge to his smile. "I'm a scrapper."

"Now see here, Carnahan, I didn't hire you to-"

And that was when Percy actually _looked_ through the window at the chap that had stopped the bus, and right then the bloke honest-to-goodness turned _grey._

And the tune immediately changed.

"Right. Absolutely right, old boy. Time to chuff off, I'd say."

The alarm bells that were ringing in Jonathan's head ratcheted up a notch, and even Sigrun looked perplexed, or as perplexed as she ever looked.

Still, best not to look a gift horse in the mouth and all that nonsense.

* * *

As soon as Sigrun had signalled them, Kurt and Hallet had slipped off the bus, waiting a couple of snowdrifts away. Getting silently off the coach with Magnusson would have been fine as the lady seemed to be a naturally slippery customer, but leaving with Sigrun and _Percy Golding_ in tow was like robbing a bank and then trying to slink out silently with bagpipes under one arm and a greased pig under the other.

The suited gentleman was still arguing with the driver.

A couple of kids watched and waved at them as they tiptoed as quietly as they could out the back of the bus, and Jonathan waved back, putting his finger to his lips. The littlies grinned at each other and nodded back, putting their own fingers to their lips, happy to share in the conspiracy.

Their retreat wasn't exactly what one would call _swift_. The melting snow and the marshy ground didn't allow for any sort of speed, and Jonathan was at once glad that for once he had made a practical wardrobe decision in wearing his old leather boots, but also anxious about the very obvious tracks they were leaving behind.

"Now that was a near thing, eh, lads?" Percy said nervously when the coach was in the distance.

"I think it's time that you and I had _words_." Andy Hallet said, his face dark.

"Don't be absurd, we have to keep moving-"

"Do you have something personal against Asians?"

"Of course not! It's just medically speaking, there are some races that are just biologically _superior_ , and, and…" Percy stopped speaking, right then seeming to realise that everyone around him were staring at him with varying mixtures of disgust and horror. A moment after that, he seemed to remember that each of the people around him had fought _against_ the rise of Nazism in one way or another.

"Medically speaking according to who?" Andy demanded. "Josef Mengele?"

Jonathan briefly closed his eyes. "Oh, Perce." _You bloody fool._

"Fascist." Kurt's face was pale, the German's massive fists clenched so hard that they were trembling. He growled something else, so low and guttural that Jonathan didn't catch most of it, though there was no missing the final word, spat out through clenched teeth. " _Nazi_."

"Hey." Everything was rapidly spiralling out of control far quicker than Jonathan cared for. "Hey! Are we forgetting the situation that we just ditched? Perhaps it's more important to make tracks before someone shoots us in the back, say?"

Thankfully, _that_ seemed to get attention. Jonathan looked at Magnusson, who nodded curtly. Andy Hallet spat on the ground. Kurt Steiner stared at Golding for a moment longer, revulsion etched into every line before turning away. Jonathan swung back to look at Percy, who was staring at him with an expression of astonished relief.

"Who was that bloke?" He demanded. "Who are you trying to rip off this time? And don't piss me around; old Kurt here looks like he has mighty itchy fists."

Percy seemed to finally realise that he _really_ wasn't going to be able to wriggle out of this one. "They have satellite offices all through Europe and the old colonies, and among all the agencies that officially don't exist, they _really_ don't exist."

" _Paradygmat._ " Jonathan said.

"That's the Polish office." Percy nodded. "They call themselves Prodigium."

Sigrun's eyes narrowed. "Prodigium?"

"It's Latin." Jonathan said.

"I think we all picked _that_ up, thank you, Doctor Obvious." Hallet snarked.

"That fellow's name was Talbot. They approached me as an independent contractor to look into the disappearance of a shipment that one of their agents had sent to them on the collapse of the Reich."

"They approached _you_?" Jonathan asked.

"They approached a lot of people. There're probably several teams looking for this bloody train right now." Percy bristled. Well, no wonder why the chap had been treating this whole thing like a race the entire time.

"So who's Talbot? Your handler?"

"Merely a contact I'd thought I shrugged off." Percy said. "The only contact I have for the institute."

"Who are the institute's agents?" Jonathan asked.

"I don't know. I never met any of the other agents. For all I know _, you're_ one."

Everyone looked at him, and Jonathan rolled his eyes. "Oh, honestly. Can any of you really imagine _me_ as a member of a secret society?"

"This is bollocks." Once again, Andy said what everyone was thinking. "He's pulling this shit outta his arse. I say we tie him to a tree and leave him behind for this Talbot bloke."

"Kid-" Jonathan reached out a placating hand.

Hallet ripped his arm free from Jonathan's grip, turning to shove at his chest. "Don't 'kid' me, granddad!"

But that one shove from a disgruntled child was enough to dislodge the dirt under Jonathan's feet, sending him slipping and sliding on the mud and the slush. He flung out his arms and air whooshed past his fingers as Andy's hands missed his by millimetres, hearing his companions' alarmed shouts.

_Bugger me!_

The earth gave way beneath him, and once again Jonathan found himself hurtling uncontrollably down a sharp incline, rocks snagging at his body painfully, his vision a blur of brown and grey. He managed to wrap his arms around his head to protect himself to some degree as he tumbled and tore down the slope.

_Mother, I don't like this ride. May I get off?_

As suddenly as it began, Jonathan's wild ride came to an abrupt stop as he hit a plateau at the bottom with a skid, staring up at the sky, his body feeling painful and too heavy to move. He really _should_ get up, but… It seemed like hours, though it was probably only minutes, before he felt like he could actually rise. Jonathan forced himself to sit, and then to one knee.

The moment he pushed off against his other knee to stand, there was an ominous creaking beneath him. Jonathan had about half a second to go _shit!_ before the earthen plateau he was standing on gave way, dropping him into the darkness beneath.

"Carnahan!"

"Jonathan!"

Impact.

The air was thick with dirt and swirling powdery snow and the dusty, musty smell of a room that had been shut up for too long. Jonathan coughed, his sides hurting. After a long moment sprawled on his back, he managed to roll over to see the room he had fallen into. It was long and narrow and lined with boarded-up windows, and as he squinted into the darkness, Jonathan realised that he had fallen into a train car.

"Carnahan!" Kurt. Jonathan couldn't quite pinpoint exactly where his voice was coming from, but he certainly bloody hoped they weren't far behind. He wasn't looking to having to potentially climb out.

Out of a train car that had been buried at the foot of the mountain.

Well, who would have thought it. Dramatic, what.

"Down here, the hole! All the way down!" As an afterthought, he added- "Be careful."

"Are you okay, old man?" Andy. That impulsive, self-destructive brat was in need of a jolly good time-out.

"Fine." He pushed himself up off the floor and a painful twinge travelled up his arm. _Maybe not._ "Be a sport and get me out of here, yes?"

"Absolutely spiffing, roger wilco old bean."

Jonathan rolled his eyes.

Nursing his arm, he squinted around himself as his eyes adjusted to the low light. The boarded-up walls were lined with shelves that were stuffed with dark green boxes, and he was bloody lucky that he hadn't landed on one of the loaded tarp-covered pallets and broken his back. That might have put a slight _crink_ in his plans, so to say.

Jonathan nudged aside the tarp covering the nearest pallet.

The sheen of gold glinted in the wan light. Ha! Sheer dumb luck strikes again!

"It's here! I've found it!"

"What?" Sigrun shouted. The next moment she stuck her head through the roof of the car.

"The train! You're on top of it!"

Jonathan rubbed at his arm. Thankfully, it looked like superficial damage. He could have been half-dead and Evelyn would have been shouting down at him to describe exactly what he saw by now, so Sigrun's next question slightly threw him for a loop.

"Are you all right?"

She briefly bit her bottom lip, and Jonathan tried not to think of how endearing he found it. _That's it. You have become a dirty old man._ Jonathan glanced down at his bum arm. The pain had dulled to a throb, and he could feel blood oozing through his clothes. "I probably won't be climbing out by myself any time soon."

"We'll get a rope and get you out."

"No hurry, old girl." Jonathan replied. "Toss me down a torch, though, will you? I might just take an old sticky-beak while I'm down here."

Magnusson didn't say anything else, but a flashlight fell through the hole in the roof, clattering onto the floor. Jonathan switched it on and flipped up the corner of the tarp. Yep, gold bars, stamped with the Reich seal, absolute little beauties. And then Jonathan thought of where all that gold had most likely come from and his enthusiasm immediately waned.

He ran the beam of the torch over the boxes, abbreviations for the contents stamped on the outside. Part of Jonathan paused at the thought of prying open those boxes, wanting to yet considering that the contents had been essentially been hermetically sealed for two years, he didn't know the damage he might do.

Bracing his good shoulder against the connecting door to the next carriage, Jonathan pushed.

And almost fell flat on his face as the anticipated locked door turned out not to be that locked after all.

The flashlight slipped from his hand and bounced on the floorboards.

" _Sweet_ Lord!"

There was a clatter and then footsteps on the roof of the train, and he hoped they weren't about to fall on top of him. "You still with us, pops?" Hallet called.

"What's wrong?" Sigrun demanded.

"Nothing. I'm fine. I'm fine, just a bit of a fright." Jonathan put a hand on his racing heart. After all, the last several times he had seen a desiccated corpse, it wasn't long after that until the bloody thing up and started eating people. It sat there by the door, withered and grey, jaw hanging open and a few strands of hair still clinging desperately to its scalp, frozen in a final scream.

"It just looks like the old chaps from the Workers Party never made it off the train."

"Really?" Ah, _there_ was the archaeologist's damnable morbid inquisitiveness that he had been anticipating. Sigrun stuck her head into the hole once more. "Dead?"

_I would damned well hope so._ Jonathan slunk a little closer, scooping up the torch and shining it on the corpse that was slumped on a stool by the door. "Pretty dead, judging by the bullet hole in the back of the skull." But still, he'd seen enough times that the condition wasn't always permanent.

"How many are down there?"

"A good few," Jonathan breathed. "All dead, bullet to the back of the skull-"

His torch beam stilled. "Ah."

"What?"

"Got a chappie here with SS bars that looks like he blew his whole face away."

There was a skid and a thump, and suddenly Magnusson's voice was clearer and closer, another flashlight beam wavering in the darkness. "Like the Jews of Masada, whereupon seeing the oncoming legions of Rome, drew straws to decide those ten who were to kill the others."

"And then one poor fellow was appointed to kill the ten." Jonathan breathed. He strongly suspected that the officer he was looking at wouldn't have appreciated Sigrun's comparison, as apt as it may have been.

"That… makes no sense." Magnusson's voice was getting closer. "They are _books_. Surely nothing worth _this_ secrecy."

"Depending on what exactly is contained in these books." Jonathan said. "Remember, someone in Himmler's circle was sending them to this Prodigium outfit instead."

"And along the way had deemed that whatever was held here was too dangerous for _anyone_ to possess."

"Precisely."

She snorted. "Don't be a fool. We don't even know what this Prodigium _is._ I know where you are headed with this, Doctor Carnahan, and magic does not exist."

Jonathan shone his torch back at her, catching Sigrun in the face. She grimaced at him and raised her hand to shield her eyes. "Magic doesn't exist? What, Doctor Magnusson, you've never really watched the sun go down over the sands of Egypt? Watched the moon dance off the water of the Amazon at night?" He paused, grinning. "Seen a bloke go past and thought ' _he's a bit all right_ '?"

He could hear the smirk in her voice. "You're really the last of the old-fashioned romantics."

Jonathan took her piss-taking in stride. "I'm just saying, magic is what we think it is. This-" He clicked his torch on and off. "A hundred years ago, pure magic."

"I have no idea what point you're trying to make."

Jonathan just grinned, and then grimaced. Magnusson spotted him stiffen and ran her torch over him, stopping at the blood on his sleeve.

"Carnahan-"

"Don't look at me like that. A couple of stitches and I'll be right as rain."

"I'm starting to think I should apologise for dragging you into all this."

"Now? That's only just occurred to you _now_?"

"Oh, stop complaining, you old woman."


	9. Chapter 9

His little hotel room in Prague was more or less a bed with a shared toilet that resembled a nuclear test site, but considering Jonathan had gone weeks now without a shower or a shave or even really changing clothes, it was like walking into the most opulent suite in the Ritz. Honestly, his trousers were caked in so much dirt and mud that they could practically stand up by themselves.

_Now those are going in the 'burn' pile._

He scratched at his clean-shaven jaw. The money _better_ be worth it, because right now, all Jonathan wanted to do was curl up with a whiskey and a good book, or just the whiskey.

On the upside, there were no mummies thus far and the dead had stayed dead, so that was always a good thing.

The puzzle box sat on the tiny dressing table, looking deceptively innocent. How the damned thing had actually remained in his pack after his little close-up introduction to Poland's fine terra firma days earlier, Jonathan would never know. He glared at the little box, like it was the one responsible for his run of rotten luck, and _not_ Jonathan's own sub-par judgement.

_He said you're the_ key.

Old Perce's family owned property all over the United Kingdom and India and Hong Kong. The family money stretched back generations. What would that old idiot need with a gold train? There was something else going on here, he just _knew_ it.

He raised a hand to his mouth, thinking hard. _Come on you old fool, you used to be good at puzzles._

Actually, what would that old idiot need with a bunch of old books in the first place? What would this Prodigium place want with old books? Why would a double-agent decide to up and kill everyone before hiding the train and offing himself instead of delivering the shipment to one side or the other?

Old… _books._

_He said you're the_ key.

Jonathan almost sprung to his feet in horror when the thought struck his empty head.

The unknown people on the tracks that had seemed to disappear like smoke.

Evy's desperation to get him to shut up and _listen_ to her, more than usual.

_He said you're the_ key.

Bile rose in his throat as his hand closed around the puzzle box.

Imhotep.

No, that was impossible! The Book of the Dead had been sucked into the vortex at Ahm Shere, and the Book of Amun-Ra was… was lost, decades ago, that's right, courtesy of _himself_ , Jonathan 'Butterfingers' Carnahan.

And what would a 24 carat twat like Percy Golding want the Books for anyway? He shuddered at the possibilities.

And Prodigium. Where exactly did they fit in here?

_Percy, what are you wrapped up in?_

* * *

Evy, he needed to talk to Evy.

Jonathan ducked out into the hall to the telephone. He didn't exactly fancy the idea of having this sort of conversation out in public like this, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

It took forever for the call to connect, and when it did, the crotchety old butler told him quite pointedly that 'the mistress' and her old hubby were out, but they could be contacted at a particular hotel.

In Prague.

_What on earth…?_

He got the operator back on the line, who put him through to the hotel, who put him through to Evelyn's room. Lord, he was tired of intercontinental phone calls.

_"_ _Jonathan!"_ All right, looks like you're now deaf in that ear, old chum.

"Good grief, woman, I knew it was only a matter of time until you found me. I swear, you're like a bloodhound."

_"_ _Stop talking."_ Evy said bluntly. _"You're in Prague? Listen to me closely, you absolutely_ must _get the hell away from Percy Golding as soon as you can!"_

"Evelyn, watch your bloody language, young lady!" Despite herself, his sister laughed, though there was a slight hysterical edge to it. "What the devil is going on?"

_"_ _He's dead."_

It was like ice was suddenly running through his veins. "What?"

_"_ _He's dead, Jonathan. There was a fire through the family property in the Bahamas six months ago during a reunion, razed it to the ground, and no one made it out. The fire chief suspected arson, but nothing could be proven. The whole family is dead."_

"What." That's not possible. That was just not possible. Percy and the family money had funded Sigrun's last three projects. He'd _sat_ next to him, he _spoke_ to him. He'd called him a fool and an entitled child, to his _face_. "I know you're put out that this time I'm having an adventure all by myself like a big boy, but there's no need-"

_"_ _Will you_ stop _? Where are you? Rick is looking, but - Jonathan, tell me where you are!"_

"Please. There is absolutely no need-"

Something hard and cylindrical jabbed him hard in the back. "Hang up."

Oh, _fantastic._

"Wait your turn." Honestly, sometimes Jonathan deplored his first instinct to stir the pot. "Can't you see I'm on the telephone?"

His sister's voice was shrill. _"Jonathan, what's going-?"_

There was an unnerving sound of a weapon cocking behind him.

"Hang up the phone."

Receiver to his ear, Jonathan slowly turned, the telephone's cord wrapping around him. "Ah, old boy, it's you! I was just about to-"

Percy Golding stuck out a foot and tugged the telephone cord from the wall with one pricey, hand-tailored leather shoe.

"Now, _really_ , is there really a call for that?" Jonathan complained.

"Your sister, I presume." Golding held the shotgun with a familiarity that Jonathan never would have expected. "She isn't going to be able to get you out of this one."

Jonathan slowly raised his hands, one still gripping the telephone receiver. "Now, what is the meaning of this? Coming up on an unarmed man? Aren't we Englishmen?"

At that, Percy sneered. "Please. You're just some Egyptian half-blood mongrel brought about by some wild grave robber who couldn't help dipping his wick with the natives."

All right, for _that_ he was going to pay.

His teeth clenched. "Be careful, that's Mother and Father you're talking about." Jonathan's chin rose, looking down his nose at Golding with as much contempt as he could muster, which right now, was a hell of a lot. "I would watch what you say. Friend."

"It would appear that you're not exactly in the position to make threats. Mate."

Jonathan laughed. "Sure. Maybe you should hand over that shotgun before you hurt yourself. I'm surprised you know which end of the firestick the shells come out of."

"I've changed since 1917." Percy's smile was cold, that poor-little-rich-boy-veneer stripped away to leave the unfeeling automaton beneath. Jonathan's eyes darted around the closed doors up and down the hallway. Even if any of the occupants were present at the time, it was just the kind of classy establishment that if any gunshots were actually fired, they'd just hunker down and ignore it until the bodies had been carted away. "Give it to me. I want it."

"Oh gee, old chap, I never knew you felt that way, but I'm going to have to decline. I'm just not of that kind of bent."

That shotgun muzzle that wasn't even wavering an inch was starting to worry him. Jonathan wondered exactly where his sister was in Prague, and exactly how fast Evelyn could sic old O'Connell on the job. Jonathan was an old hand at obfuscation by now, but keeping a fellow talking who may or may not have known how to actually fire both barrels was perhaps beyond him. Rick would come in handy right about now.

"I want the _key._ Give it to me, and we both just walk away from this."

"Excuse me if I can't bring myself to believe that."

Percy's sneer turned into something darker, and the next moment he lunged forward to search through Jonathan's jacket pockets. With the shotgun loosely held under one armpit and momentarily off-balance, Jonathan saw his opening.

He brought the Bakelite telephone receiver crashing across Golding's face.

Jonathan leapt away back down the hall as Percy stumbled.

"Someone call the police! Oh. _Policie."_ Yes, like _that_ would help. "Someone, policie!"

Percy straightened, his shoulders squaring, his face slowly swinging around to glare at Jonathan.

Jonathan's eyes widened.

"God."

The whole side of his _face_ was hanging loose like a harlequin mask that had been knocked out of place. Jonathan could see his _eye socket_ and the lean muscle of the cheek. Percy bared his teeth, and the effect was utterly, utterly terrifying.

Oh.

Well, at least Jonathan knew why old Perce was after it. If Golding was some kind of reanimated corpse, the Book of Amun-Ra would have been his only real threat.

"You little _prick_!" He roared.

_Mummies! Why were there always bloody mummies?_

Jonathan wasn't exactly going to stay to hear whatever came next, as he bolted down the stairs. For a moment he had a thrill of hope that he might actually manage to put a little space between the two of them-

The shotgun roared as it discharged, the shell slamming into his back and sending Jonathan sprawling on the landing at the bottom of the stairs, hitting the floor hard.

His mind was in a tiz, not yet registering the pain. _He shot me! The little ponce_ shot _me!_

And that was when the delayed agony kicked in, radiating out from the centre of his back and causing his lungs to constrict in shock, his heart beginning to pump double-time.

Dear Christ, I've been shot.

Jonathan was abstractly aware that there was quite a bit of blood on the floor, soaking into the foul carpet. Footsteps thumped down the stairs and Jonathan dragged himself along, shoulders screaming. His legs were sluggish to respond to his commands, but with a great deal of pain, they _did_ move. _At least that means that the spine hasn't been severed_ , said the clinically-calm doctor's voice in Jonathan's head that he had come to loathe, _you're not paralysed._

Jonathan dragged himself further along the floor. Oh, great, you might get your face blasted across Czechoslovakia, but at least you're not paralysed!

"Jonny, Jonny, Jonny." There was the sound of Percy ejecting the spent cartridge and slipping in a fresh shell. "Where do you think you can actually go, Jonny?"

Well, he had a point there, but the human will to claw onto survival was strong.

Percy hooked a foot under Jonathan's hip and flipped him onto his back, and to force back a scream Jonathan bit his lip so hard that it broke the skin. "You know… you won't get away with this."

"But dear boy, I already have. I want it and I'll have it." Percy's smile was sharp as one hand lifted to his face to push the flap of skin back into place. Oh god, Jonathan could see _bone_. "I find the key and I win. Of course, there'll be a bit of a hullabaloo when they find your body, but then the Yard will find your renewed connections with some rather underworld-ly types and all will make sense."

The little shit had set him up. The little shit had set him up this _whole_ _time_. Part of him wanted to kill the man, yet another part wanted to congratulate him on the long con and a masterful performance as a self-important cock. Jonathan had pictured his death many times over the years in varying forms of gruesomeness. Somehow this situation had never factored in. "You little _bastard_."

"Sticks and stones, mate. You could have made this easier on yourself, but good show, old chap. Good show." He snapped the shotgun closed, raising the stock to his shoulder. At this distance the police would be picking up _pieces_ of Jonathan to send to his sister.

"What on earth is going-?"

Percy's head moved to the side a fraction, allowing Jonathan a glimpse of a vision sent from heaven.

"What the _hell_ -?" Sigrun Magnusson's feet tripped over themselves as she came to an abrupt stop as she took in the tableau before her. Her gaze travelled from Jonathan on the ground up to Percy, and her eyes widened as she took in Percy's ruined face, freezing to the spot.

"Sigrun. Darling." Percy smiled at her with his lopsided face, shotgun swinging around.

"No. No!" Jonathan clawed at his ankle, but Golding just shook him off, taking a step down the hall toward her, looking with interest towards the canvas bag slung over her shoulder. "You've brought me a present?"

"Si-grun." Jonathan stared at her, not entirely comprehending her shocked paralysis. He had been living with mummies and the undead for so long that he'd completely forgotten what a normal person's reaction to this kind of situation was like. It would have been refreshing if it wasn't so dire. _"_ Run!"

At that, Golding gave a bright grin. "Of-bloody-course. Just like you, Jonny, passing it off onto the nearest blonde. Give me the bag, sweetheart."

"Of course. Of course. Don't kill me." She slipped it over her shoulder and offered him the bag, slowly creeping toward Percy with her arms outstretched and Jonathan stared at her. This was not the woman he'd met in Peru, who could control the rowdy and actually quite feral men on her team with a look and a scowl. _Snap out of it, old girl!_

Percy grinned triumphantly, eyes on the bag Sigrun was offering up.

And that was when Magnusson took a step like she was a singer about to step forth into the limelight for her solo, and brought the contents of the bag up and cracking across the fellow's choppers. Jonathan inwardly cheered.

_WHAM._

Golding wheeled to the side under the force of the blow, and the shotgun discharged, blowing a chunk out of the wall as he stumbled. Sigrun Magnusson advanced on him menacingly and Jonathan's heart lurched as he realised that the bag had slipped off the contents, and clutched in her hands the doctor was holding the Book of Amun-Ra.

Percy raised his hands and lunged at the same time the lady hefted the book a second time and-

"Sssi…" the sounds came out like a strangled hiss. _Are you going to lie here and die, or are you going to do something, you dolt?_ Jonathan forced himself over onto his side, like _that_ was going to do a lot.

All in time to see that Sigrun was first to land a blow, the Book smashing into the side of Percy's head, his neck wrenching around so far that there was a sickening _crack_ as his cheek met his shoulder blade in an unnatural bend and the body collapsed in a heap. _Bloody brilliant._ Jonathan's eyes were wide, and if he'd had the breath in that moment he probably would have professed his undying love for her.

Sigrun discarded the Book off to one side like it was some cheap trinket, the chunk of metal making a sad little thump on the ratty carpet. She dropped to her knees beside Jonathan, and the next moment she was shouting to someone, fingers prodding and probing painfully. There was a skidding sound as Andy Hallet landed heavily on the other side of Jonathan, face pinched and pale in a way that Jonathan wasn't expecting.

"Hey, Pops, you playing rough with the other kids again?" Smug little cock. Jonathan just hoped he lived long enough to tell him that.

"Give me your shirt." Magnusson instructed Hallet. "We need to stop the bleeding."

Strangely, there were no arguments. "Boss."

"You got… my invitation." Jonathan coughed. There was blood on his lips. Bonzer, as his mate Harry would say. "Berserker… blood?" he joked weakly.

"If you believe my father." Magnusson said. Her hand on the back of his neck was warm. He was so cold. "Be less cryptic next time. You just attract trouble, yes?"

"Why, Doctor, that's the whole… basis of our relationship." Jonathan whispered.

She smiled down at him, and Jonathan dearly hoped that one day she'd look at him like that _while he wasn't bloody dying._ "Don't get fresh."

He grinned.

"You bloody _bitch_."

Jonathan's head rolled to the side, and his heart stopped.

The crumpled form of Percy Golding was giving twitching little movements like a dying spider, and the next moment the creature was on his feet, head still hanging down near his shoulder. As they watched, horrified, Percy took his head in his hands, lifted it up, and with a wrenching movement snapped it back onto the top of his spine.

Andy's jaw dropped. "Holy _hell_."

"Too much trouble, I _knew_ it." Golding was muttering to himself. "You lot are too much trouble than you're bloody _worth_!"

He roared out the last word, raising a hand and _ripping away the hanging piece of his face_ , exposing the bone and muscle underneath.

Hallet sprang to his feet in that way that only a young man could, pistols appearing from beneath his airman's jacket in a flash.

"Stay right there, pal."

What was left of Percy's face twisted in a sneer. "Fuck off, you little twit." He stretched out his arms, popping something in his shoulders. "Ah, that felt good. Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off! You have absolutely _no idea_ how long I've wanted to say that!"

And he lunged.

Andy's pissy little pistols went off, but were echoed by louder roars, and Jonathan glanced up to see that Kurt and Captain Dragovitch had arrived to join the fun, guns drawn, but faces incredulous.

"What the hell is this?" Kurt demanded.

"We're all just making friends." Hallet said.

Jonathan reached up to grab at Magnusson's lapel. "Read from the Book."

"What book?" Andy demanded. "This is _insane_!" Kurt looked down at them both in confusion, and then saw the Book, blanching, while the Russian kept up a steady stream of gunfire. "You're all _insane_!"

Pieces of flesh sheared off Percy under the onslaught, but the bastard kept coming.

Her attention was torn between him and the creature, but Sigrun finally looked down at him, perplexed. "What?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Not when you ask _that_."

Fair enough. Jonathan wouldn't have trusted _himself_ if he'd said that.

"Give it to me!" Golding roared.

"I'll give it to you, all right!" Andy shouted back.

"I don't _speak_ Ancient Egyptian." Sigrun said, her face alarmed as she looked over the hieroglyphics. "My area of study is _European_ history."

_Ah,_ bloody _hell._ Of _course._

"Help me up."

Jonathan's back screamed as Magnusson hooked an arm around him and dragged him up. She fetched the book for him while Jonathan fumbled drunkenly to reach the hidden pocket sewn into the hem of his trousers. He pressed the release on the puzzle box, and the teeth of the key snapped out, almost stabbing him in the fingers. Bloody, bloody hell. Why didn't Jonathan just write down that sodding incantation in 1926? It would have made everything since then _so_ much easier.

The gears in the lock groaned, and Sigrun had to turn the key when the strength in Jonathan's fingers failed. "Help me."

But what if it didn't work? After all, old Percy hadn't made any deals with any Egyptian gods recently that they knew of, so what if-? Good grief man, stop second-guessing yourself! You're the last chance we have!

Wait.

He _was_ the last chance they had.

Oh, _Lord_.

"No!" As soon as Percy saw the lock click open, he tried to get to Jonathan, murder in his eyes, and there was a fresh round of gunfire. " _No_!"

"Why won't this bastard _die_?" Kurt roared in German.

Dragovitch's Russian reply wasn't something Jonathan was willing to repeat in polite company.

He fumbled through the heavy pages, his fingers leaving bloody smears on the lovely gold. Ah, there we are. An oldie but a goodie.

"Kadeesh mal! Kadeesh mal!" Jonathan's voice cracked, and he cleared his throat to continue. He needed to get the bloody thing tattooed on his _arse_. Maybe then he'd remember the damned thing. "Pared oos! _Pared_ _oos_!"

Suddenly there was absolute silence, like all the air had been sucked out of the corridor. Gripping their weaponry, Kurt and Hallet exchanged glances, while Sigrun's hand tightened on Jonathan's shoulder. The sound of Dragovitch ejecting a shell and snapping in a fresh one suddenly seemed so incredibly loud in the vacuum.

_What-_

And then Percy started laughing. "Really? You though _that_ would work on me? I am stronger than you!" He seized Dragovitch's shotgun and forced it up toward she ceiling, snapping the burly Russian's trigger finger before head-butting him into the floor. "I'm faster than you!" Kurt didn't get the chance to fire his rifle again before Percy's fist shot out fairly in the fellow's guts, sending the chap doubling over before his feet were swept out from under him and he landed hard on his back.

Golding spread his arms wide like he was the ringmaster welcoming them to the circus.

"I am _better_ than you."

Pompous little _arse_. Jonathan started flipping through the tablets once again. Darn it to heck and back, surely there was a one-size-fits-all little jobbie here somewhere?

"And when I have the Book I will live forever, and _no one_ will be able to stop me!"

That was when Sigrun pointed to something on the page. Jonathan glanced at her, and she shrugged in a _couldn't hurt now, could it?_ way. "You said you couldn't read Ancient Egyptian."

"I said I couldn't _speak_ it."

Oh, of course _. Silly me._

"Eazizi al'umu, 'ueid tilk alhadaya alty surqt min bayn 'asnan al'ard."

Nothing happened for a long moment, and then it was like something brushed softly by Jonathan's ear, like a ladies' voice too indistinct to hear clearly.

But Percy seemed to see something, his mouth working wordlessly. Finally he managed to whimper out one word.

"Mother?"

The whispering in Jonathan's ear rose to a shout, and there was a crack like lightning.

"Dear _God_."

A massive erethral delicate feminine hand punched through the floor of the building, entrapping Percy in her slender fingers. As Jonathan stared, the fingers turned withered and skeletal and singed, their grip tightening.

"Mother, I'm sorry!" Percy howled.

But the hand just continued to tighten on the struggling figure, seeming to get a good hold of something that the rest of them couldn't see.

Percy screamed.

The hand wrenched back down through the floor, leaving no trace that it had ever been there, and the remains of the creature that had been Percy Golding tumbled to the ground in a broken heap, the corridor suddenly strongly smelling of smoke, the anticipatory feeling gone.

_There was a fire through the family property in the Bahamas six months ago during a reunion, razed it to the ground, and no one made it out…_

No one said anything for a long moment.

Andy Hallet spun his pistols around his trigger fingers like he was a Wild West gunslinger in the movies. "Well, that'll put hair on your chest, eh, fellas?"

Sigrun gave the kid a narrow-eyed look.

"Not to be a bother, but if no one minds, I'm just going to go ahead and pass out now." Jonathan said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The spell roughly reads 'Dear Mother, I return the gifts which have been stolen from between the teeth of the earth'. The Arabic translation is very dodgy considering I have no grasp of languages and had to rely on Google. Apologies.


	10. Chapter 10

_... an undetermined time later..._

They were talking about him. Well, judging by the level of irritation in both voices, they were either talking about him or Alex, and Alex wasn't here right now.

"This is the end of the discussion, we're taking him home."

But Muuum, I want to stay and play with the other kids.

"Are you kidding? He's a grown man, Evelyn, we can't just bundle him up and hide him in the cellar. Besides, he'd only break out again."

Ah, Rick, your sunny disposition and positive outlook has been sorely missed.

"And what about all the grief you put me through when we were trying to convince him to _leave_ in the first place? Inviting 'proper' girls over to the house to try and marry him off. Remember?"

He remembered. It had been such a pain in the proverbial, and had been one of the driving forces pushing him to bugger off and get his behind to Shanghai, where he had plenty of advance warning if they decided to come for a visit. And none of the girls Evy had introduced him to had been his type in the slightest _._ Jonathan knew that it was his sister trying to not-so-subtly mould him into becoming an upstanding member of society, but honestly, it was like Evy didn't know him at _all_.

"Oh, Richard, now you're just being unreasonable."

Now really, the man was _born_ unreasonable.

"Unreasonable? You've been complaining to me about your brother practically since the moment we met!"

Please, old chum, Evy had been complaining to Jonathan _about_ Jonathan the moment she could speak. You got used to it after a while and just carried on.

"I have _not_."

"Evy, c'mon." Jonathan could just _see_ the lowered brows, the _are you kidding me_ expression. "But as much as I hate myself for saying it, I never would have thought he'd have the balls."

What? A complement? From Rick O'Connell? Was the world coming to an end?

"Richard!" Evy barked. "He was shot! In the _back_! Which wouldn't have happened if he had just stopped to listen to me!"

Jonathan almost scoffed aloud. Listening to his sister was what had potentially got the family into the habit of resurrecting the dead in the first place.

"When has he ever stopped to listen to you?" Rick asked. "Well, stupidity aside, he still came out swinging. Hear that, you little fink? You did a good job."

"Do I get a treat? Nanny always gave me a sweetie." Jonathan opened his eyes a crack. "How long have you known I was awake?"

Rick was standing, looking down at him in that unimpressed way of his that Jonathan was so familiar with. "About the moment you stopped snoring, I'd say."

The spectre of sleep hovered at the back of Jonathan's mind, but his body twinged in a way that told him that he had been lying down for far too long. He squinted at Rick and Evy, O'Connell standing beside the bed with his arms folded and his sister sitting on a chair close by, looking harried and flustered and like she might hit Jonathan at any moment.

For a moment an expression of such utmost relief crossed Evelyn's face. And then Jonathan blinked and it was gone, and had him questioning if it had seen it in the first place as she stared at him all haughty and annoyed like a governess about to give him a damned good caning.

She smoothed her skirt, crossing her legs at the ankle like the prim and proper madam she had somehow become when no one was looking, and Jonathan had a sudden yearning for the barefoot hellion of years past, running through the sand with her dark hair streaming behind her like a banner.

"You stupid _twat_."

"Hello to you, too." Jonathan croaked. "I should call the matron and get you thrown out."

Evelyn's brow twitched in that way that told him he was about to be swatted. "Well, congratulations, you sprung the trap! Surprise! It was set for you!"

"You didn't used to be so cranky. Rick, how long has she been this cranky?" He winced as he tried to get into a position that eased the pressure on his spine, and despite herself Evy leaned in and fluffed a pillow for him before remembering that she was supposed to be angry.

"You're just exceptionally unobservant." O'Connell said.

"Rick, dear, perhaps you should find a telephone and let Alex know that his idiot uncle is still with us?" Evy's voice was tight with barely constrained emotion.

Rick patted Jonathan briefly on the shoulder as he passed. "Good luck."

"How bad is it?"

There was a cheeky sparkle in the chap's eyes that Jonathan hadn't seen in, oh, absolute _ages_ , not maybe since Evy had died _._ "Oh, I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise."

Jonathan pulled a face. "Abandon me in my hour of need."

"Hey, I never liked you anyway."

"Pah, I'll have you know I'm absolutely delightful."

"Saying it doesn't make it true." Rick gleefully wriggled his fingers at him, already halfway out the door. "So long."

The _farewell_ was implied.

The door closed behind him, leaving the two siblings staring at each other.

Evy's eyes were narrowed, hands on her hips and one foot impatiently tapping on the floor like she wished she could bury it in his backside. _Tap, tap, tap._ "I hate you so _much_ right now."

"Why, I never would have guessed."

"All you had to do was stop and _listen_ _to me-_ "

Jonathan fought the compulsion to roll his eyes. "I dare you to name ten times that's ever happened."

"-slow down and pay attention-"

Oh, yes, because he was such an expert at _that._

"Evelyn-"

"-and then you almost _died_!"

"To be absolutely fair, that wasn't exactly my fault and you know it."

"And then if you died, where would that mean for me? Where would that leave me?"

Jonathan's brow knitted in confusion. "Are you entirely daft, O'Connell?" He demanded, trying to inject some much-needed humour into the situation before he lost his mind and got cranky with her contrary behaviour. "You'd be exactly where you are now, in that creaky old house on the hill with your son and his questionable self-preservation instincts and that dratted husband and his ridiculous jaw."

Evy just _looked_ at him right then, and in an instant she was a little girl again, all big dark eyes and wild hair. "But you wouldn't be there."

Her tone was small and plaintive, and Jonathan sighed. "Get over here, you little fool."

"Jon-"

"Don't 'Jon' me, little miss, and get over here." He held his arms out to his little sister. She wavered, resisting for the sake of accepted propriety, but a moment later, Evy shucked her heels and crawled up beside him in the hospital cot. His baby sister tucked her mussed head under his chin, stretched out along his side like those times thirty-odd years ago where she'd sneak into his room when she couldn't turn off her mind, and he'd tell grand tales and spin nonsense for her until she drifted off to sleep. "Old mum, did you really think you'd get rid of me that easily?"

"I thought you were going to die." She said in a small voice. "I thought you were going to die and I just… couldn't see my life without you in it, you prat."

He couldn't stop the smile. "Well then, my sweet baby sister, I've decided I'll live forever, just for you."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Evy propped her chin on his chest so she could look up into her brother's face, a cheeky twinkle in her eye that lit up her whole face, a twinkle that he had sorely missed. "Rick's jaw _is_ ridiculous, isn't it?"

Jonathan laughed.

* * *

"I think someone's taken one of your bags."

"No, no. That's it. That's everything."

Despite the sheer volume of _stuff_ Jonathan had accumulated over the years, he actually travelled reasonably light, with a couple of pairs of trousers, a few shirts, shoes, shaving kit and stationery set. Various wars didn't allow for extravagance. Most of his _stuff_ was salted away in trunks in various locales with various acquaintances who may or may not have pawned everything off at the first available opportunity. But he kept up the illusion of packing like a Russian princess primarily because it annoyed his sister.

Evy pursed her lips, looking down into his suitcase somewhat doubtfully. "Oh."

"Make sure my cards are there!"

"Oh, Jonathan, honestly!"

Yes, honestly. The playing cards were the last thing that their father had ever given him, with a grin and a wink and ruffling Jonathan's hair as he and Mother headed out the door on their next adventure. Their last adventure, as it turned out.

It took Jonathan until his youth to actually start to ponder the tastelessness of a gift of nude playing cards to a child.

Well, at least he knew where he got it from.

Jonathan stuck out his chin stubbornly and Evy rolled her eyes. "Fine. Look, they're here."

He snatched them out of her hand, tucking them safely into his breast pocket. His little sister shook her head at him before snapping his suitcase closed.

"I can carry that myself."

She just gave him a look like she expected Jonathan to bolt as soon as he had his bag in his hand, and defiantly kept his suitcase. Ha. He was feeling so knackered and run-down right now that old Imhotep himself would be hard-pressed to get him scrambling. His back was stiff like an old board even though the nurses had him doing all kinds of stretches to reduce the scarring. He probably hadn't contorted this much since he was a youngster.

They left the ward.

"Leaving us so soon?" A careworn figure in grey set down a tray of pills and dusted off her calloused hands.

"Regrettably, all good things must come to an end." Jonathan kissed the matron on the cheek.

"And _you_ stop angering men with guns, yes?" The lady's tone was teasing, but her eyes were deadly serious. "As much as I and the ladies enjoyed your company, I do not ever want to see you back here again."

"I'll take that in the spirit it was intended." He said. "Take care, Helga."

As the nurse bustled off to her next job, it took Evy staring at him for longer than was considered polite or _normal_ that Jonathan realised that he'd just conducted the entire conversation in a language other than English. He slowly started coming aware that perhaps he'd blown his carefully-constructed façade of Don't Tell Evy. Oh, _bugger_.

"That was Czech."

"Yes, I'd rather noticed that myself." He brushed off his lapels, fixing his shirt cuffs.

Evy was staring at him through narrowed eyes like she was halfway certain that his was another of her brother's pranks and the punchline would land at any moment. "You never said you could speak Czech."

"Oh, come now, I never said I could _not_ speak Czech." Jonathan frowned. "Stop looking at me like that."

"Why did you learn Czech? _When_ did you learn Czech?"

"Eh, sometime. I don't always keep track."

"You don't _keep track_ of when you learn languages?" She demanded. All right, it was getting annoying the way his baby sister was speaking to him like he was a special child that needed to be kept away from the electrical outlets.

"I don't know, Evy, I'm not like you who journals anything even slightly important for the sake of posterity, you little egomaniac." Evy coloured slightly. "Maybe it was osmosis."

She gave him a narrow-eyed look. "You're not a plant."

"If you ask my science master, I was as dull as one."

Deflection, that was what he did best, if he did say so himself.

She huffed to herself, resolving herself to not getting an actual answer out of her brother. Jonathan smiled winningly and Evy stuck her tongue out at him.

Solid, sensible shoes tapped on the gravel, and he knew who was coming even before his name was called.

"Jonathan!"

Doctor Sigrun Magnusson was coming toward them, in yet another of those horrid tweed suits and thick sensible stockings, canvas bag slung over her shoulder. Her work-broadened shoulders and muscled calves throwing off her silhouette somewhat, in a world that favoured the delicate and petite among the female of the species.

Jonathan grinned, flinging his arms out wide. "Ah, Doc, old girl, my saviour!"

He clearly remembered sitting in the bar, scribbling out the note on the back of an old napkin. After a moment's thought he ordered a glass of wine and sent it to Magnusson's table.

_I know it's a bit of a hike, but you must go back to the train immediately. There you should locate a book made of solid gold. Under no circumstance are you to give this to Golding._

_Sorry to be a bother, J._

Good Lord, if the woman _hadn't_ bothered with his little cryptic message, or was the type to simply screw up her napkins and toss them aside, Jonathan didn't want to think about where he'd be. Probably with his bodily fluids slowly congealing into those awful carpets at that dreadful hotel.

Lord, if he hadn't thought to take that moment…

If _she_ hadn't taken a moment-

Smiling, Sigrun shook her head.

And then something strange seemed to happen to Evy. Her eyes turned flinty as she looked over the younger archaeologist, straightening her spine and squaring her shoulders, like a hound about to run down a fox. Jonathan hadn't seen that look since she was a child, and it left him flummoxed.

Evy did _not_ like this woman.

"Where have _you_ been?" Evy bristled.

"Forgive me for my absence." Magnusson said. "I was instructed by my university to contact Nuremberg as soon as possible."

Jonathan blinked. "About the train?"

"The courts are sending their representatives to guard the gold until it is able to be retrieved and redistributed." The woman walked with the siblings toward the curb, where a car that Jonathan assumed Rick had 'hired' was waiting.

"What about the boxes?"

At that, she sighed. "Unfortunately, you were correct with your summation. The boxes had been in a temperature-controlled environment, and when exposed…"

"I'm sorry." Jonathan deflated somewhat, knowing the extra value of finding the manuscripts to the doctor. "So it was all for nothing?"

She stopped to contemplate that. "Of course it was not for nothing." Sigrun said after a moment. "The gold will be returned and will allow some families to rebuild their lives." She offered him a neatly-folded scrap of paper. "Here."

Jonathan took it cautiously. "What's this?"

"The figure that was transferred to your bank account along with your wage." She said. "I am as my word. As I mentioned, there was a bounty on the train. Primarily on the gold. Ten percent."

When he unfolded the paper, Jonathan was first struck with the writing, which was a neat, plain cursive and exactly what he expected of the doctor. The next was the figure written down, and his eyes went wide.

"Are you-" Christ, he'd lost the ability to _speak_. "This is ten percent?"

She shrugged. "Technically, with the untimely departure of Mr Golding, it is _two_ percent."

Jonathan's entire _face_ felt slack. "Well, _that's_ going into the change box."

"Money, money, money. Bah, you're as bad as _he_ is." Evy rolled her eyes.

"Stop being a child." Blimey, that was probably the first time Jonathan had _ever_ said that to his sister in their long and spotty existence together. "Why, that felt _good_. No wonder you say it so much."

"I hate you."

"Pff, you think I'm adorable and I know it."

Evy reluctantly smiled. Jonathan frowned. "All right, out with it."

"Out with what?" His little sister asked innocently, and Jonathan just _looked_ at her.

"Whatever you're hiding. Firstly, I wasn't born yesterday. I have the grey hair to attest to that. Secondly, your eye twitches when you have a secret."

"It does not!" Evy's hand automatically clapped over her eye. A moment later her words caught up to her brain and she got on that _oh, dear_ expression that Jonathan knew so well and her eyes went wide in that adorably-clueless look that generally had anyone of the male persuasion immediately forgetting the subject of the previous conversation as they pandered to her will. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted that Magnusson looked like she was considering interrupting and politely extracting herself from the situation, before she'd decided that the current floor show was too grand to sidle away from.

"Why, Miss Evelyn, are you keeping a secret from me?"

"Of course not!"

"Liar, liar, pants on fire." He said in a sing-song voice.

She went to open the boot of the car to throw in his suitcase, in a show of closing the subject. Jonathan's eyes narrowed. Well, hard times needed hard measures.

"Evelyn Elizabeth Anne O'Connell."

His sister froze in place like a guilty little girl. _Behold, the power of the full name._

And Jonathan finally asked the question he probably should have weeks ago, if he hadn't been in a perpetual morphine haze.

"Why the _hell_ are you in Prague, anyway?"

"Glorious serendipity?" Ah, the wide-eyed innocent look. And was she _really_ trying to use it on _him_?

"Don't give me that look. I _taught_ you that look."

Evy spun to him, pressing back against the car. "Don't be angry."

Well, _this_ was off to a promising start.

"You know I can't turn it on like that." Jonathan said guardedly. "You're going to have to give me a chance to work myself up into a right proper flap. If you've gone ahead and already sold my stock portfolio, just tell me now."

Evy sighed. "You see, there was this gentleman-"

"Does Rick know?"

"And if you keep doing that, I'm not explaining anything." She threatened. Jonathan grinned.

"Just for context's sake, are you two always like this?" Magnusson asked curiously.

"Anyway, anyway, there was this gentleman-"

"Yes, there was this fellow, he approached us after I made your… enquiries at Vauxhall Cross." Evy said. "Quite a charming specimen, if a little… odd."

"Darling, the family's rapport with 'odd' is a little on the loose side, so I'm afraid you're going to have to be a _tad_ more specific."

Sigrun made an indistinct motion, pushing up her sleeve, looking down at a man's aviator wristwatch. A remnant of her lost husband? "Well, I best get going…" Jonathan couldn't exactly blame her, it _was_ starting to drag a little.

"No." Evy said reluctantly. "This concerns you, too."

Oh, _brilliant._

"He said he works for an organisation called Prodigium, and that you were in frightful danger. Prodigium, from the Latin _monstrum vel prodigium_ , which means ' _a warning of monsters'._ Singularly, it means ' _portent'_. Doesn't that sound just delightfully ominous?"

Delightfully delightful. "Evelyn Elizabeth Anne, what did you _do_?"

His little sister opened her mouth to shoot out a pithy reply, when a car door opened and closed, and there was the sound of expensive shoes on the pavement, and Jonathan was abruptly reminded that they were having this somewhat personal conversation at the side of the road.

And the shoes stopped.

"Doctors."

Jonathan turned.

"It would appear that Mrs O'Connell has stolen my introduction."

And of course, because the Good Lord was an antagonistic third grader with a magnifying glass and Jonathan was an ant, the man standing behind them with his sanguine face and his undertaker's suit was-

Evelyn smiled.

"Mr Talbot, it's good to see you again."

He should have expected it.

He should have _bloody_ expected it.

Jonathan was still, rooted to the spot. Sigrun was in a similar form of immobility. As he watched, Evy's face changed, and he could tell that she was considering perhaps for the first time that she may have miscalculated. And that in itself made Jonathan angry. Only _he_ was allowed to exploit his sister's stupidly trusting nature!

"Carnahan." The fellow nodded at him, and it was probably good that Evy had taken his suitcase because he'd have thrown it at the bastard by now. "Magnusson." He shot Sigrun a conciliatory smile that if anything made the woman wind up even tighter, gripping the canvas book bag like she wished it was the chap's neck. "Your… assistants mentioned that you would be here."

"If you've harmed any of them-" Sigrun growled.

"Ms Magnusson, I assure you that we're not animals."

" _Doctor_ Magnusson." She shot back shortly. "And I suppose blowing up the train and killing the engineers were the actions of educated gentlemen?" Sigrun demanded.

For someone who had such a wide and varied career trajectory as Evy O'Connell, she actually looked out of her depth. Jonathan's gaze lightly flickered over the pedestrians and the people waiting for the bus, and even though he had been out of the business for a while, he spotted three of Talbot's people straight away. Surely they wouldn't be gunned down right in front of a hospital, would they? Well, he supposed at least they're in the right place for it. "I am _so_ cranky at you right now." He hissed at his sister. "Hasn't a lifetime with _me_ taught you that you've always got to watch the charming oddballs?"

" _Do_ sod off." Evy said pleasantly.

"It was decided that Percival Golding could not have been allowed to reach the train." Talbot said bluntly. "Whether there was collateral was entirely immaterial."

There was something about the cool dismissal of human life as _collateral_ that rubbed Jonathan entirely the wrong way, reminding him of the officers from the high-class and nobility he'd encountered on the Front another lifetime ago who thought the average Tommy was below them. "But _you_ were the one that contacted Percy! You _knew_ he had an ulterior motive. You just didn't know _what_."

"He would have gone anyway." The fellow was unflappable. "By contacting him directly, we were able to control the situation."

"Until he got wise." Jonathan argued. "You did a brilliant job of that, since he was going to use the Book to live forever."

"That's the way it goes." Talbot dismissed. "Sometimes an asset goes rogue. _You_ should know that better than anyone."

He bristled. "I _never_ put anyone in undue danger, especially not civilians."

"No, you didn't, did you. For someone with your record, you are unexpectedly moralistic." Talbot gave a grand sweeping motion to a handsome town car that smoothly pulled in against the curb. "Perhaps we might continue this interplay somewhere more private?"

Jonathan looked around, at the agents who weren't even trying to blend in, now Talbot had made contact. Hmm. Without a Rick O'Connell on hand he didn't like the odds, though both the ladies were looking like they'd happily throw themselves into a fray, skirts and stockings and all.

"Do we have a choice?"


	11. Chapter 11

Jonathan squeezed onto the bench seat between Sigrun and Evy. Normally he'd make some crack about being a rose between two thorns, but right now he suspected it was more than his life was worth. The skin on the back of his neck was prickling, and he turned slightly to see that Evy was glaring at him. _Honestly, why's it always_ my _fault?_

"Who _are_ you?" Evy stared at him with some suspicion. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

Jonathan couldn't suppress it this time, and gave in to the compulsion to roll his eyes. "Old mum, there's _always_ something I'm not telling you. I think it's safe to just assume that as a default and move on. Maybe _you_ should stop blindly trusting shifty buggers."

"If I _didn't_ blindly trust shifty buggers-" the implied _like you_ was obvious- "we would have never found the map to Hamunaptra in the first place." His sister retorted.

Jonathan's hand clenched, the one with the crescent scar.

"Which isn't arguably a bad thing." He fired back.

Doctor Magnusson muttered something about Odin saving her from idiots and Englishmen, and honestly, Jonathan found himself agreeing with the sentiment.

Talbot turned around in the passenger's seat to look at them.

"Oh, and there's one other small thing."

Jonathan's eyes narrowed.

"You've _got_ to be joking." His sister exclaimed.

"Mrs O'Connell, do I look like I have a sense of humour?"

All right, he'd pay that one. Jonathan sighed as he reached out to take the proffered black bag and slipped it over his head.

* * *

They were allowed to remove the blindfolds just as they were driven through the barbed-wire gates of a bleak-looking compound of cement and steel, through several checkpoints guarded by mean-looking men with rather large guns, and Jonathan had more or less convinced himself that it would have been better for the lot of them if he'd bucked up and just gone to Australia already.

The car came to a stop in front of an unassuming aircraft hanger, and Jonathan followed Sigrun out the door.

They had driven long enough that Jonathan fully expected that they had left Czechoslovakia and were back in bloody Poland again. _Brilliant._ The wind whistled across the square, lifting the hair off his brow. During the last war he'd seen compounds like this set up all through Europe and beyond, temporary airfields and automotive dumps that had gradually evolved into transient detention camps. He briefly wondered whether they were about to become the next guests.

Great minds think alike, or at least siblings, because Evy immediately said-

"People will look for us if we disappear."

"Don't be absurd, Mrs O'Connell." Talbot said. He knocked on the massive hanger door, paused a moment, and then knocked again in sequence. There was scratching inside, and some clanging, before the hanger door was rolled open from the inside.

Jonathan squinted into the darkness. "Does it get grand soon? Only because I find my attention span isn't as long as it used to be. Something to do with the mustard gas, I expect."

"That was thirty years ago." Evy exclaimed.

Sigrun raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged.

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

Evy and Sigrun gave him unimpressed looks which he met unapologetically. He was who he was, and it was too bloody late in the game to change now.

"I'm afraid Mrs O'Connell somewhat pipped me at the post when it came to the introduction. _Monstrum vel prodigium_. A warning of monsters, in the very literal sense, Doctors."

Jonathan looked at his sister. "Are you feeling rather left out right about now?"

Talbot led them further into the hanger.

"Oh my goodness." Evy said softly. "My _word_."

And in the wide-open space where undoubtedly a fleet of German aircraft once waited before the signal to bomb the arse out of Poland, was a bank of electrical terminals and radar, the sort of technology that Jonathan had been afforded glimpses of when he worked at Bletchley Park. White-coated technicians looked up at them and then back to their jobs, dismissing them as not important enough to stall their work for.

Jonathan stepped forward into the laboratory.

"What the hell is this?"

"Welcome to Prodigium." Talbot said. "Or part of it. Research and Development, you may say. And I suppose in the long run we should be thanking you and your sister. Oh, and Mr O'Connell, of course."

"What are you talking about?"

The shifty European smiled.

"Because you are the reason we're here, Doctor Carnahan, because of you and 1926 and Hamunaptra, unleashing the undead to scrounge on the earth, and showing us a great weakness that we were unaware that we possessed. We are prepared for wars of men and armies and guns and death. What we were not ready for were wars of plagues and fires from heaven and might and magic."

Talbot folded his hands neatly behind his back. "And indeed one might say that _you_ are the Prodigium."

"Portent." Evy said. " _We_ were the portent. The omen of evil to come. Jonathan, are we an omen of evil?"

Normally he'd make a crack about how he'd _always_ been a potent of doom, but he didn't like how Evy's brow was crinkling in that uncertain way that said she was decidedly over-thinking the current situation. "Don't be bloody ridiculous." He snapped. "Anything can be an omen if it happens at the right time." _Or the wrong one._ "So you do _what,_ exactly?" Jonathan asked Talbot sharply. "Hunt monsters? Like some sort of supernatural hit squad?"

"If we are able access to the records that enable it, yes. We recognize, examine, contain, and destroy evil."

"If that's true, then where have you been since then?" Sigrun demanded, taking a threatening step forward. In her throbbing voice for the first time Jonathan could actually hear the bereaved widow beneath. "If you have the capability to 'destroy evil', then _where have you been_?"

Her voice cracked, and before Jonathan was fully conscious of what he was doing, he reached out, his fingers snagging hers. Sigrun frowned down at his hand, but she didn't pull out of his grip. He shot her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Easy on, old girl. Keep the heid."

Her brow furrowed as she bumbled through the Scottish phrase. Jonathan squeezed her hand.

"Ours is not to interfere. The affairs of men are beneath us. How petty dictators decide to kill men is no concern of ours."

"No _concern_ -?" The sheer arrogance was staggering. That time, Sigrun had to hold Jonathan back. "How can you _say_ that? Are you entirely mad?"

Talbot merely raised his eyebrows. Jonathan dearly wanted to smack him just to try and get some sort of actual human reaction out of the bloke. "What we have gathered, what we have prevented from falling into the hands of pretend conquerors would have devastated the world hundreds of times over. You should be _grateful._ "

More and more he was beginning to understand why the mole in the Socialist's Workers Party had blown himself away instead of delivering the manuscripts to this dodgy Prodigium outfit.

"Oh, go boil your head." Evy snapped.

"We are to remain impartial, no matter the circumstances. Can you envision a false Alexander the Great or Attila the Hun with the powers of the old gods at his fingertips? The destruction would be …unfathomable."

And, bugger it, Jonathan could _see_ his point. He didn't like it, but he could see his point. But still, all it took was one man. One man with his personal prejudices and his own mind, and the whole house of cards would collapse.

The flaw was glaring.

The mood had escalated in minutes. Jonathan stiffened as he heard the sound of a drawn gun brushing against some fellow's trousers. "I'm beginning to think we've outstayed our welcome. Is anyone else starting to think we've outstayed our welcome?"

"Yes, it's getting late. My husband will be expecting me." Evy said, with heavy emphasis. "Perhaps you could give us back those delightfully fragrant sacks and get your driver to drop us off somewhere along the way? We can find our own way back."

Sigrun didn't say anything, gripping her canvas bag.

"Unfortunately protocol dictates that it is not that simple, Mrs O'Connell." Honestly, was the man even real? Or some sort of automaton from a Jules Verne novel? Jonathan guessed that protocol normally dictated that they'd end up being found in a week floating face-down in the river. "But… I suppose alternate arrangements can be made."

Ah, he could guess where this was going, and could sense the hard word coming. He had known Tommies that had run afoul of the intelligence agencies and given the same 'offer' to work for them so their indiscretions wouldn't be reported to their commanders. "What alternate arrangements? Just so you know, I don't work Sundays and make a lousy cuppa."

And that cracked Talbot's impassive visage, as he grinned, all sharp teeth, giving Jonathan the disturbing feeling that he'd just been smiled at by Death himself. "Doctor Carnahan, even though you may possess many of the qualities we do look for in prospective agents, believe me when I say that none of us would even _begin_ to consider offering you a position."

In all honesty, Jonathan wouldn't have employed _himself._ And the reason had been written on forty-odd years' worth of letters and reports. _Reckless. Undisciplined. Immature. Risk-taker. Rabble-rouser._ Still-

"No need to be so snotty about it." Jonathan sniffed. "All right, if this isn't some sort of recruitment drive, what exactly are we doing here? Was this all just to show off your… massive hangar?"

Evy gave a very unladylike snort.

"You amuse me." It wasn't exactly the height of praise, as he struck Jonathan as the kind of fellow who'd find a turtle stranded on his back and slowly dying of exposure amusing.

"Oh, good-o."

"But I may be persuaded to return things to the way they were if Doctor Magnusson deigned to hand over the item in her little bag."

Evy and Jonathan looked at her. Sigrun raised her chin proudly. "And if I do?"

"We are more capable than you to take guardianship." Talbot said.

Her eyes narrowed. "Excuse me if I have trouble believing that."

All right, this was really starting to drag now. "What are you two idiots blathering about?"

Talbot held out a hand. "Give me the Book."

Jonathan's eyes widened. "You have the Gold Book?"

"Wait. The Gold Book of _Amun Ra_?" Evy demanded. "What about the Gold Book?"

But Talbot didn't take his eyes off Sigrun. "I would rather prefer not to have to take it off you by force, but I will if required."

And then in a week they'd be found floating face-down in the river. Jonathan swallowed.

Sigrun looked at him and then at Evy, before looking down at the canvas bag. Jonathan could read nothing in her expression, but her eyes were calculating. "You will make yourself a target."

"We may seem small, but we are more than capable to meet what comes, I assure you."

She closed her eyes and sighed, slipping the strap over her head.

"Here."

Talbot's sanguine face lit up when the book slid into his hands, some of the lustre taken from the glittering gold cover by the rusty reddish smears and handprints that Jonathan realised must have been his own blood. The agent chap ran his hand down the hieroglyphics in a sensuous way that made Jon think that maybe he should look away. Then he frowned.

"It is locked."

"Yes."

"Where is the key?"

"We looked. I couldn't find it." Sigrun said. Her voice projected sincerity, and it was echoed in her expression. Jonathan thought it may have been a touch sardonic, but that was no concern of his. The other fellow's gaze was sharp, searching for any tell that it was all a load of malarkey. Jonathan frowned. On second thought he probably _shouldn't_ take her to poker night. She'd clean up the whole pot.

"You _lost_ it?"

"My friends needed the hospital." Magnusson said shortly. "That was my immediate concern."

"Check the markets." Jonathan said. "Some enterprising chap probably got a few bob for it. And good luck to him, I say."

Talbot handed the book off to one of his offsiders, before looking hard at Jonathan. Jonathan met his gaze unblinkingly, guilelessly, innocently, the same look he'd used on countless teachers, constables and officers. _Nothing to see here, move along._ He had learned a long time ago to make anyone see anything he wanted in his face, and Talbot knew that.

And so the bloke turned to Evy, sizing her up with colourless eyes, and she met his gaze with a look of confusion. Because while Jonathan and Sigrun were adept liars, Evy's true intentions showed on her face, a barometer for the truth. If Evy was lying, it would shine through.

Talbot sniffed, dissatisfied and yet satisfied that they were telling the truth. He gestured to someone behind him, and then suddenly the black bag was being snapped back over Jonathan's head and he was being hustled the hell out of there.

"Thank you for your cooperation." The smug bastard called out behind them.

* * *

The car had dumped them along a deserted little road, and not far in the distance Jonathan could see the Poland-Czechoslovak border. It would have been nice if Talbot had dropped them back just a _little_ bit closer. The road _did_ admittedly lead them back into Prague, though it was dark by the time they managed to walk all the way back. Jonathan and Sigrun were fine in their flat shoes, but Evy complained all the way in her ridiculous high heels. Finally he'd offered to break the heels off on the next big rock they passed, which turned out to be the wrong thing to ask as for the next half hour he'd had to endure a lecture on exactly how expensive female couture footwear was, leaving Jonathan wishing that Talbot had just shot him.

"Wow, just wow. I don't believe it."

"Rick, please."

"Seriously, Evy, only you and _him_ could somehow get abducted in the middle of the day by a secret organisation that hunts monsters because they really want a book."

Jonathan looked up from his martini. "I was _completely_ innocent."

O'Connell's look said _yeah, sure._

"Besides, I suspect giving them the book was the only way to get out of there with a heartbeat."

"You still gave a bunch of shifty bastards that we don't know from Adam a book that could kill hundreds of people in moments!"

"You don't think I feel bad enough already? Let's rub some more salt into the wound." Jonathan snapped back. "I screwed up, I get it!"

At Jonathan actually biting back, Rick seemed to rethink his next words; Jonathan could see it ticking over on his face. A subtle man he was not. "Look," he said gruffly. "I'm sure you did your best, and-"

"Save the speech, you're rubbish at sentimentality." Jonathan said. "Just get me another, the, the thing with the olive."

Evy peered at him curiously. "How many of those have you _had_?"

"Not enough." He said grimly.

Doctor Magnusson drained her glass of wine before deciding that it was more expedient if she just drank straight from the bottle. It earned her more than a few scandalised looks from other patrons in the pub who liked to pretend that women didn't enjoy the grog as much as the blokes, and admiration from Jonathan that she could have cared less about who watched.

"They don't have the book."

That caught Jonathan mid-swig, and he ended up spilling his drink down his front. Ha, look at the refined gentleman.

"What?" The other three of them said at once. Sigrun shushed them before elaborating.

"Being suspicious has kept me alive. I suspected that it was only going to be a matter of time before this Prodigium came for the Book, so I made my own preparations." She said. "Andy knows a fellow not far from here, a blacksmith. He expedited a job for me."

Jonathan immediately brightened, suddenly seeing where this was headed. "Why you naughty old thing!"

"What?" Evy frowned.

"He bound a series of metal plates, and engraved copies of the hieroglyphics on the frontispiece and backplate before covering it in a thin layer of Pyrite. Smear it with a touch of tomato sauce and there you go."

"Fool's gold. Tomato sauce." Jonathan grinned. " _Magnificent_."

"But what happens if they force open the Book and it's blank?" Evy asked.

"They won't force it open." Sigrun said. "It's welded shut."

Rick laughed. "I _like_ you." He shot Jonathan a stern look. "Don't lose this one."

Jonathan was in too good a mood to really react to the crass remark. He was still smiling, but then something else occurred to him. "The other books. The Library. Are they really-?"

"Sitting in storage in a safe place? Yes, they are."

"Why Doctor, how delightfully underhanded of you." Jonathan delicately tapped his glass against Sigrun's bottle in a toast. "Colour me thoroughly impressed." She smiled at him, he fancied, somewhat shyly.

"Thank you Doctor." The smile widened, a playful quirk to her brow. "You were my inspiration."

Jonathan grinned.

Evy rolled her eyes.

"Oh, _please_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep the heid - keep calm, don't loose your head, etc


	12. Chapter 12

_LATER…_

He sat in the grand garden in a rare day of sunlight, topiary animals looming over him like something out of a child's nightmare. The two of them were sipping lemonade and eating little sandwiches with the crusts cut off like a couple of geriatric shut-ins. There was a folio of loose papers across his knees, some typed and some in Evelyn O'Connell's untidy scrawl.

Jonathan Carnahan's baby sister sat opposite, leaning forward somewhat impatiently, her hands clenched on her knees as she waited for him to finish the manuscript, looking for all the world like a little girl again and waiting for him to finish his homework so he could take her on a hike.

"Stop looking at me and finish it." She instructed.

"You're a real bossy-boots, has anyone ever told you that?" He sniffed.

Evy pulled a face at him and Jonathan grinned.

"Well? What do you think?" Her voice was anxious, seeking his approval, something Jonathan hadn't heard since they were children and she had been yet to realise that her idolised big brother was just as flawed and naively pathetic as the next boy, if not more so.

He sighed, carefully shuffling the papers neatly before closing the folio.

"It's… interesting."

She immediately deflated. "You don't like it."

"No! It's interesting. It is!"

"Jonathan, _you_ were the one that told me that 'interesting' is what people say when they're too polite to say 'horrific'." Evy said archly, and Jonathan winced. He remembered that night. He'd gone as a chaperone to Evy's debutante ball and couldn't remember how many fifteen-year-old girls with terrible acne and greasy hair in horrible confections of lace and taffeta had drifted up to him that night fishing for complements as he was the only man there under thirty, and with a line of fathers glowering over their shoulders he had to say _something_.

"Evy, it's…" Jonathan rubbed his brow. This was a delicate situation. Arguably one of the most delicate situations he had ever been in, and he'd once disarmed a landmine while his stretcher-bearer was standing on it. "Old mum, the thing is, I'm a _man_. And as a middle-aged man, I'm not exactly your target readership." He tapped the manuscript.

"Because men don't read?"

"Don't be obnoxious." Jonathan's eyes narrowed. "You know exactly what I mean."

She looked _so_ incredibly disappointed. "I do."

"Look, Evelyn, I'm pleased you've got your spark back, I am-" he genuinely was, because that meant that the dear girl would _stop telephoning him all the time-_ "-but are you entirely sure with the new direction?"

For out were Scarlet and Dash O'Keefe, and in were instead Scarlet's reprobate brother Jack Harcourt and the coolly exotic Astrid Morgensdottir. He still wasn't entirely sure what he thought of his fictional counterpart, who was decidedly more audacious and swashbuckling than he was, but was _also_ more dastardly and roguish than he'd ever been. It was amusing, yet at the same time slightly concerning that there was a small part of Evelyn that thought of Jonathan as a darkly charming scoundrel that could potentially slip into the role of maniacally-cackling evil genius if the wind changed.

Sure, he'd flirted with the darker side of human nature, particularly when he was younger, but he liked to think in the end he always made the right decision. Bar a few detours, certainly.

"You don't like it."

Oh, _Lord_. There was nothing more frustrating than a writer fishing for complements. "It was certainly a departure from the previous." And it certainly bloody was. Evy's previous novels, while purportedly set against an archaeological background, were essentially bodice-rippers with the debonair yet particularly thick hero and plucky heroine who was irresistibly drawn to him despite the fact that he was as dull as dirt and had the manners of a goat. Much swooning transpired, along with what felt like pages and pages of gazing longingly into each others' eyes. Bloody hell, if a gal did that to Jonathan; the first thing he would assume would be that she had been recently hit in the head.

The first in a possible series of Jack Harcourt novels had a decidedly different flavour, much more like the adventure books Jonathan read in his youth. It was glaringly obvious that Evy was steering her books in an entirely new direction the moment he'd opened the manuscript to find old Jack at the opening of a new museum exhibition, palming an ancient necklace and substituting a paste replica in its place. Which, truth be told, hit a _little_ too close to home. Jonathan had only done that once and only because Evy insisted the necklace was cursed and the alternative was Ardeth bursting in with drawn swords like he had been more than willing to do.

"Oh, I'll still be continuing the Scarlet O'Keefe books." His sister said. "But Bridget-" the poor, put-upon agent that had to deal with Evy's tyranny- "-suggested that I should attempt to appeal to a wider audience. Jack ran well, and I thought, why not? It would be an interesting exercise as an author in any case."

Jonathan bet it was. There were a myriad of pages that were crossed out or ripped, Evy having started a romantic scene promisingly enough and then somewhere along the way losing momentum as she suddenly remembered that Jack was based on her brother and therefore her brain stuttered to a stop as it absolutely refused to picture him naked.

Ha.

"And-" she said somewhat reluctantly. "Long-term Scarlet readers have been finding Dash insufferable of late."

"Insufferable? No!"

"Just because you were shot doesn't mean I won't smack you."

Jonathan grinned.

"Did you send Dr Magnusson my notes?"

Only because Evy was too chicken to do it herself. "I did."

"What did she say?"

"Well, after she finished rolling about laughing-"

"Ha."

"You have her blessing, dear sister, I assure you." Jonathan said lightly. Sigrun wasn't the least bit concerned that any of her colleagues may recognise her in the prose, for the main reason that in Scandinavia they tended to speak Scandinavian.

Evy looked at him from beneath lowered eyelashes, and Jonathan knew what she would have dearly liked to ask him about the woman but didn't. Instead she said something else, her tone overly casual. "Are you sticking around for a little while? Malcolm Burns mentioned to Rick that you sorted out the books for _The Black Shuck_ and found them another four hundred pounds."

Jonathan shrugged. He was good with numbers, surprisingly good. As much as he would have liked to say that it was for reasons otherwise, he suspected that was why the girls asked him to hang around Bletchley Park in the first place. He would have _liked_ to have gone to university for mathematics if it hadn't been for the fact that accessing the money left aside for him and Evy in his father's will was legally dependant on completing a _history_ degree, and after the Great War he'd been in no mood to fight semantics. Jonathan was _definitely_ the sort to toot his own horn, but for some reason the things he was genuinely proud of he kept close to his chest.

"It wasn't really all that hard, old mum. Anyone with basic addition and subtraction skills could have found it." Well, maybe not _Rick_ , but anyone else.

"So you might be looking at coming back to England? Perhaps buying some property and such? Getting into the whole nightclubbing business again?"

"What's the rush?" He asked curiously.

"I was just wondering, moneywise, if you need a loan, I'm sure we can-"

“Any other time, I’d swear you were trying to keep me here, dear sister.” Jonathan grinned. "I'm still a majority shareholder in _Imhoteps,_ that'll tide me over for a while provided McGuire doesn't run the whole shebang into the ground or drink all the grog in Asia." It was probably the first time his entire life that Evy had seriously considering lending him money, and he found something endlessly amusing in that. "I think I'll shelve the whole nightclub entrepreneur thing for the time being, considering."

Uh oh, the suspicious look was back. "Considering what?"

He chose a sandwich, making sure there wasn't any cucumber on it. "I'm going to Alexandria."

"What?"

He bit into the sandwich. "And I'd rather like you to come as well."

"You _what_?"

"I've been asked by an old mate of mine to do some consulting work." He said delicately.

" _More_ treasure hunting?" Evy's eyes narrowed. "'Old mate'?"

"Oh, all right, Sigrun has been asked to come in to evaluate the authenticity of some particular items that have been discovered on a dig."

"I thought her area of expertise was Norse and European history?"

Jonathan sipped his lemonade. "Exactly."

“ _Vikings_ in Egypt?”

“They _were_ two of the most powerful civilisations in the world.” He said.

“And then, because they’re bringing in outside consultants, I assume it all gets sticky?”

"You have no idea. Apparently they've discovered an ancient docklands dating before Seti I, along with the port register. And as far as the experts can make out, there was a rather large shipment sent from the Northmen to Rameses II on his coronation along with a complete delegation of representatives, and therein lies the rub." He watched Evy for a reaction. "It is quite the coup when one considers that old Rameses didn't come to the throne until 1279 BC, and Norway wasn't even _settled_ until 1200BC. The Golden Age of Viking occupancy really took place in 800 AD. Over _two thousand years later_."

"That _is_ quite a large discrepancy." Evy said cautiously. "How do you know-?"

"I _do_ read too, you know." Jonathan said tartly. "Which means three things: either the Egyptologists have read the reliefs wrong and the shipment was sent to a much later pharaoh, the Norse historians are off, _really off,_ with the estimates of when their civilisation actually started…"

His sister’s eyes narrowed. “Or?”

Jonathan shrugged. “Well, when the historians say _settled_ , do they mean actually _discovered_ , or formally, shall we say, _established_ , like with a mayor and a little corner shop with a chippie? Was there a formal settlement already there, or was it like a nomadic enclave, like the Bedouins?” He grinned at her doubtful expression.

“A civilisation that was somehow at the pinnacle of advancement before the _official_ settlement of Norway?” Evy asked scornfully. “A civilisation that apparently faded into obscurity immediately after and leaving no trace behind?”

“Or were folded into the settlement. I’m sure the settlers couldn’t afford to be picky. And they would _hardly_ be the first lost civilisation.” Honestly, for some reason her expression tickled him pink. “There _are_ tales all over the world that speak about a race that came before the world of man.”

“Just so you know, if you say _Atlantis,_ I may actually hit you.”

“Please. I’m not a _complete_ fool. Everyone knows Atlantis is somewhere off the coast of Greece.” Yes, Jonathan looked like he was heading for a smack. What could he say, he couldn’t help himself. “Like the stories of giants!”

“Giants.” Evy had a tired expression on like she just should have expected her brother’s crackpot theories by now.

“As much as I love it, your face is going to set that way if you keep looking at me like that, old mum.”

“And you can make your eyes as big and blue as you want, you won’t be able to charm your way out of your nonsense that easily, Carnahan.” She shot back tartly. "So Dr Magnusson's been brought it to consult. And you're going to be consulting the consultant."

Her tone was faintly mocking.

"Yes, yes, and now I'm asking you to consult the consultant who's been brought in to consult the consultant."

"You _must_ be joking."

"Always, but not right now." He quirked an eyebrow at her, swirling the melting iceblocks in his drink. " _Aaand_ I thought I'd take the opportunity to ditch the Gold Book."

Evy almost spat lemonade all over him. " _You_ have the book?"

"Who else did you think? None of the boys wanted to touch the damned thing, not that I can blame them, and the Doc's been busy with her university and Nuremberg. It seemed like the best idea at the time."

"You had it the _whole time_?" Evy demanded. "And you didn't tell _me_?"

Oh, there were _so_ many things he hadn't told his sister.

"You didn't do anything with it? Wait, what _are_ you going to do with it? You better not be going to do anything stupid."

"Stupid? Me?" He asked innocently. "I'm not an _entire_ idiot, Evy. Sigrun and I talked and decided-"

"Oh, you and _Sigrun_ decided-"

"Stop being a baby. Anyway, we knew that slippery fellow Talbot would undoubtedly be keeping a close eye on us, and decided that taking off to Egypt immediately would tip off this Prodigium outfit that we had been fibbing just a _tiny_ bit. And also it took me a decent amount of time to get a telegram to Ardeth. Bugger's harder to pin down than an Irishman with a passport and a disposable income." Jonathan raised his eyebrows at his sister's expression. "What? Did you expect me to just row over to Egypt and throw the book into a sinkhole?"

Evy coloured. "No." She said, after a beat. Honestly, how the dear girl had ever worked for the Foreign Department, Jonathan would never know. He loved her, but gosh, she couldn't even lie like a cheap rug.

"Well, I thought that since actually defeating evil is supposed to be old Mr Bay's job description, it was time to pass the buck, so to speak." He paused. "And hope I don't get any overdue fines for returning the Book late."

Evy frowned, staring down at her lap, thinking. Jonathan tapped his fingers on his knee. Waiting was never his strong suit.

"Are you coming or not?"

"What? Of course I'm coming!" Her eyes snapped up. "Jonathan?"

"Yes?"

"There's one thing I can't quite figure out."

He sipped the last of his lemonade, which had gone all hot and was like drinking warm sugar. "Yes, my darling sister?"

"How did the Book of Amun Ra get to Poland from Egypt?"

That wasn't the thing that he would have picked first, but oh well.

Jonathan shook his head. "The one explanation that makes the most sense is that the Afrika Korps must have brought it back to Germany with other manuscripts and artefacts that Rommel thought might appeal to Himmler's sense of the esoteric. If there are official records, the League of Nations or Nuremberg aren't exactly going to let us have a looksee."

"I suppose not." Evy said reluctantly.

"But we're going to Egypt. Africa's not that far." His eyebrows rose. Despite himself, it was a point of interest to him, too. And exactly where along the line Percy Golding had heard about the Book of the Living and decided he was going to be a god. "We can _always_ scratch around, stir the pot and see what floats to the surface."

Evy's eyes were alive with excitement.

"Rick's going to hate you for this, you know."

Oh, he was absolutely shaking in his loafers.

"Bah, retirement doesn't suit that old blighter anyway." Jonathan said. "Besides, there's nothing that says you _have_ to bring the old ball-and-chain. It's been absolute _ages_ since just the two of us went off and did something ridiculous together."

"The two of us and _Sigrun_." His sister said archly.

Jonathan rolled his eyes.

"You are _such_ a brat."

He would like to state emphatically for the record that none of this was his fault, _thank you very much._

* * *

 

… _somewhere else…_

Work on the site had stopped for the night, discoveries roped off and protected, the diggers drifting off to their own spaces to drink and sleep, the crew and the archaeologists themselves gathering to celebrate the discovery of the ancient docklands. There was laughter and music, and people scurrying over the sand like ants.

The three riders on the ridge watched the events taking place below them, two men and a woman, in the flowing robes of the natives, all but invisible to the interlopers beneath.

“They violate the land, the savages.” The young man said with disgust in his voice towards the foreigners. Despite his words, alongside ancestral weapons he carried a rifle and a Sten gun. “Some things are buried for a reason. We should move them on.” The barely-veiled bloodlust in his voice was apparent, leaving none in any doubt of exactly _how_ he wished to move them on.

The woman snorted, impatiently pushing back her fall of dark hair. “And draw undue attention to our presence?” She asked scornfully. “How wise. Do you not think that the desert has yet had her share of blood and death?”

He gave her a dark look, bristling that she had so bluntly rebuked him as a fool. “And I suppose _you_ have a better solution.”

“Enough.” The third of their number interjected before it became a true disagreement. He was an older man with lines of happiness and sorrow etched deep around his eyes, his shoulders still somehow yet unbent under the burdens of chief of the tribe. “You must learn patience.” The older said to the younger. “And _you_ must learn tact.”

The young man looked like he would much like to argue, but had the sense to hold his tongue. The woman just gave an inscrutable look that was much familiar.

“For now we wait.” The older instructed.

“For what?” The younger asked curiously.

“One day you both will learn how to sense it.” Ardeth Bay titled his head back, the desert breeze catching at his dark hair and tangling it about his shoulders, and for a brief moment he could hear the voice of his beloved departed Amira, whispering on the wind words too indistinct to truly catch. Eyes as dark as midnight flickered open.

“Something is awakening. And we must be ready.”

The young woman straightened on her steed, chin raised proudly and jaw clenched in a manner that he recognised was his own.

“We will be.”

 

_Fin._

_..._

_.._

_._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Ardeth! Hi, Ardeth! Yeah, I really had to have everyone's favourite desert warrior cameo somewhere.
> 
> The only thing I found remotely interesting about the 2017 Mummy movie was the introduction of Prodigium, a Torchwood/SHIELD-esque agency whose job it was to protect the world from monsters, and the nod to the Brendan Fraser movies by having the Gold Book in their collection. In my mind, Prodigium was established after the whole Imhotep thing, and the Book of the Living that briefly appears in the Tom Cruise movie was actually the fake one Magnusson mocked up.
> 
> To those paying attention, Mr Talbot is also named after The Wolfman, another Universal monster.
> 
> AND IN REAL LIFE in 2016, a stash of 13,000 occult manuscripts that Himmler had looted from occupied territories were found in a depot belonging to the National Library of the Czech Republic near Prague, and was last accessed sometime in the 1950s. Many of the books had been looted from the Norwegian Order of Freemasons during the occupation.
> 
> If anyone's interested, yes, a sequel to this fic is planned at some stage because when you're playing with these characters, you really need to get them back to Egypt sooner or later for more Mummy related fun.
> 
> Thank you :)


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